Question about this summer.. and mcat and.. research

[bored]

Ok Last summer, I did the mcat and got a 7 on vr, other sections were fine. At the time, I was working full time in downtown, so had a 1 hour commute (I thought I could handle it).

 

this year, I know ill get an nserc If I apply, but should I do it?

 

the commute would be much less and It would be at my school so there would be a library near by. I know the prof for long and know that the type of research that he does has a lot of free time.

 

I need to write an early MCAT (maybe in early July).

 

It seems like the answer is pretty obvious. I think I shouldn't apply this year to nserc and just focus on the mcat.. But on the other hand, Im at a school where the 3rd years pretty much get all the nserc grants and the people applying during their 4th year, even if they have very high gpa don't get as many grants made available to them.. so this is pretty much my last chance for an nserc.

 

I guess my question is to the people that already did an nserc, those who did full time research during summer and anyone that can give some insights.. How is research? we are to do a full time research, but is it really 7.25 hours of research all day? Is it possible to study 50% of the time?

[ArchEnemy]

Ok Last summer, I did the mcat and got a 7 on vr, other sections were fine. At the time, I was working full time in downtown, so had a 1 hour commute (I thought I could handle it).

 

this year, I know ill get an nserc If I apply, but should I do it?

 

the commute would be much less and It would be at my school so there would be a library near by. I know the prof for long and know that the type of research that he does has a lot of free time.

 

I need to write an early MCAT (maybe in early July).

 

It seems like the answer is pretty obvious. I think I shouldn't apply this year to nserc and just focus on the mcat.. But on the other hand, Im at a school where the 3rd years pretty much get all the nserc grants and the people applying during their 4th year, even if they have very high gpa don't get as many grants made available to them.. so this is pretty much my last chance for an nserc.

 

I guess my question is to the people that already did an nserc, those who did full time research during summer and anyone that can give some insights.. How is research? we are to do a full time research, but is it really 7.25 hours of research all day? Is it possible to study 50% of the time?

 

I highly doubt it. 7.25 hrs is the recommended number of hours, but you usually end up working close to 10hrs a day. NSERC is paying you so you can do some good research. But if you were to be half-hearted, I doubt any good research can come out of that. This not only affects you, but also the credibility of your prof to get future NSERC grants.

[preppy038]

Ok Last summer, I did the mcat and got a 7 on vr, other sections were fine. At the time, I was working full time in downtown, so had a 1 hour commute (I thought I could handle it).

 

this year, I know ill get an nserc If I apply, but should I do it?

 

the commute would be much less and It would be at my school so there would be a library near by. I know the prof for long and know that the type of research that he does has a lot of free time.

 

I need to write an early MCAT (maybe in early July).

 

It seems like the answer is pretty obvious. I think I shouldn't apply this year to nserc and just focus on the mcat.. But on the other hand, Im at a school where the 3rd years pretty much get all the nserc grants and the people applying during their 4th year, even if they have very high gpa don't get as many grants made available to them.. so this is pretty much my last chance for an nserc.

 

I guess my question is to the people that already did an nserc, those who did full time research during summer and anyone that can give some insights.. How is research? we are to do a full time research, but is it really 7.25 hours of research all day? Is it possible to study 50% of the time?

 

It really depends on the lab + what kind of work you do.

 

If you're gonna be doing Western blots all day then you def have lots of time in between to study. If you're doing one where you need to be on top of pretty much everything, then you won't really have much time to study (unless you allot a few hours every night at home instead of going out).

 

During one of my summers in undergrad, I had an NSERC project and also studied for the MCAT. The lab i was in was pretty relaxed, and I had no grad student or anyone supervising me, so I could basically schedule the project to meet my needs. Plus, a lot of work I did had lots of off-times (Western blots, baculoviral infections -- usually takes 2~3 days, so I could literally take those days off if I didn't have any sample left over from the week before to experiment on).

So basically, I had at least 2 hours each day (Western blot - running the gels...transferring..blocking etc..)

 

I didn't have to commute that summer, so it was really nice too (I honestly know how 1-hour commutes are. I did them last summer ).

 

I personally think you should do the NSERC. If not, then schedule the MCAT earlier to sometime at the end of May or beginning of June, and look for 3-month summer research positions beginning June-August. At least then you can focus on one thing at a time.

Even if you get the NSERC, you have 2 extra hours that you can spend from not having to commute that you can regularly commit to reading and doing verbal passages everyday.

 

hope that helps

 

Edit: I did end up with a few valid results in the end. I think I spent ~7 hrs a day and maybe ~10 hours on busy days -- but these include the time-outs I could take while running gels. I actually went unto do an honours project with the prof, so it wasn't too bad too.