The benefits of summer students

The first summer of my postdoc my boss joyfully told me we would be taking on two students as an extra pair of hands to help me with my experiments. I thought that sounded great.

Fast forward to summer number two; three students. My reaction - I guess that's ok.

Summer number three, two students again. Well alright, thats enough. How can I get anything done around here if I have to stop what I am doing every nine months or so to train someone new!!

Training rotating students is something that I have become somewhat of an expert at, although I admit it is not of my choosing. Quite frankly it just seems like there isn't enough time for it. How can you expect you complete your experiments while training someone to do what they're supposed to do. What's worse is once they finally have figured out how to do something, the summer is over and they are gone. Well this is my third summer and I've decided to stop fighting it. Training summer students is just part of my job (at least in this lab). So rather than try to do everything at the same time I have accepted that the summer months are a slow time in the lab.

A popular PI time management mantra is to have multiple experiments running at the same time. While waiting for one experiment you can be working on the other. Generally this is a good idea. Anyone who has spent any time at the bench knows there can be a lot of down time. You spend time waiting for regents, waiting for cells to grow, waiting for dialysis, waiting for PCR reactions. During this time you can be working on one of your side projects, something of lower priority. I generally like these side projects to be of the high risk, high reward, variety. It's this type of multitasking that makes you a more productive scientist. Unfortunately if you are in a lab that trains summer students these side projects must be put away for the summer months. Multitasking takes on a new flavor.

To make the most of summer months with students set your priorities as follows.

1. Keep main project moving in a slow but steady pace.
2. Start writing up some results.
3. Practice your teaching and mentoring skills

The first goal is obvious, the project must move along, even if happens at a snails pace. Goal number two isn't as obvious but is one of the benefits of summer distractions (woops, I meant students). Taking the time to write is something that we should always make time for. Setting aside the summer months to write, whether a complete story is ready or not, is beneficial. It helps you go through your data, determine what needs repeating, whats ready, where are the holes, and lastly, get things down on paper while they are fresh in your mind (or notebook).
Even though spending time training students seems like it takes time from your experiments, it offers hidden benefits. You also learn by teaching. Explaining a protocol well forces you to understand it better. Explaining your model and hypothesis makes you think and reevaluate. If you are lucky and get a rising star, often their questions will drive your research into new and exciting areas.

My advice, Don't fight it, make the best of it, and don't set your expectations to high.