Should I tell my supervisor in the lab about my AS?
28 Jan 2015, 6:47 am
tall-p wrote:
Well... I guess I don't know. How would you "mention it?" When? To whom? What do you think they would say?
I don't know. I didn't really have a specific situation in mind. I meant in general. You can't really get any kind of help unless you ask people for help. Example: I would never have gotten any support at university (which allows me to take exams in a quiet room etc) unless I had told people at university that I need that kind of help. However, if you tell "random" people (friends/acquaintances/people you don't tell in order to get support/help) they most likely won't care at all and won't bring it up in future conversations. Like you said, they often don't want to hear it.
Do you know what I mean? I feel like it's difficult to express my thoughts right now.
Data001 wrote:
With regards to your situation I suggest that explain about your AS to your supervisor is a good idea as just saying your anxious doesn't really mean much and as he did just told you to not to worry, which makes you worry more about making a mistake or screwing up big.
Maybe. I don't know. This whole situation makes me a bit confused.
btbnnyr
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28 Jan 2015, 2:39 pm
rebbieh wrote:
btbnnyr wrote:
The problems that you described seem to be caused by anxiety instead of AS, so it seems more useful to tell about anxiety and try to reduce anxiety than to tell about AS. Generally, people understand anxiety much better than AS, so telling about anxiety is much more useful to get understanding from others.
About not knowing what to do in lab while waiting for something to finish, most undergrads don't know what to do. Many people stare into space, play games, or browse internetz while waiting. The only reason some people like grad students and postdocs seem to know what to do is because they run their own projects, so there is always something to code or write or read while waiting.
About not knowing what to do in lab while waiting for something to finish, most undergrads don't know what to do. Many people stare into space, play games, or browse internetz while waiting. The only reason some people like grad students and postdocs seem to know what to do is because they run their own projects, so there is always something to code or write or read while waiting.
Yeah, maybe you're right. I tried telling the supervisor about my anxiety last summer. Well, I didn't really tell her how serious it actually is but I told her I easily get anxious and fear making mistakes. Do you think I should tell her I have actual problems with anxiety (though I'm actually not sure I'm diagnosed with it since I got the AS diagnosis)? Perhaps that's better than telling her I have Asperger's syndrome (still think it's pretty awful that we have to hide that though). I guess AS is more relevant when it comes to for example social gatherings with the group I'm in. We went to a restaurant one evening (the whole group, so I felt like I had to be there as well) and yeah, I didn't do that well.
I don't want to be yet another confused undergraduate. I didn't (and won't) sit and just play games or browse the internet. Last summer I tried reading a bunch of articles about things relevant to the project but that was complicated (I had only studied two semesters by then) and I found it very difficult to focus properly (mostly because I felt so uncomfortable and out of place in the new environment). This summer I'll probably have a bit more to do since I need to start writing the report about the project but I'm still worried.
I seem to remember you working in a lab as well. Is that correct? I don't know if you've ever been anxious about it but if you have, does it get better? I hope it gets better the more experience I accumulate.
Anxiety goes down the more eggsperience you have, the more confident you are in lab.
Almost eberryone is initially anxious about working with lab equipment and are afraid of making mistakes to screw up the eggsperiment or breaking things.
It is not a huge deal to screw up an eggsperiment, it happens sometimes, and I never considered it a horrible thing from undergrads or anyone else who worked with me.
The timescale of academic research is long, and it is unlikely that screwing up an eggsperiment will have important effects in long term.
I think that you should work on not focusing on the anxiety, as that will make things worse.
Also, do you have a therapist for anxiety, I think reducing anxiety in eberrything will benefit you in long term, much more than telling people about autism, as they probably won't understand anything about autism.
I don't consider not telling people about autism hiding anything, as I don't see a reason to tell people about it or an autoimmune disorder that I have unless these are highly relevant to what I am doing, like my professor knows about autism since it is part of our research (I didn't tell anyone else in lab, I just let them infer it or get it through rumor mill, probably many people who know me still don't know), and the autoimmune disorder is much less relevant to anything in lab.
About doing random things in lab, there is nothing wrong with doing random things while waiting for something to finish.
No one eggspects each other to focus on some constructive activity all the time, in my eggsperience it is particularly hard to focus on reading anything in lab.
As aside, the kind of undergrad that eberryone most wants and likes is the kind who becomes independent quickly and can take over a part of a project or even whole project that one has no time to do oneself.
_________________
Drain and plane and grain and blain your brain, and then again,
Propane and butane out of the gas main, your blain shall sustain!
29 Jan 2015, 12:34 am
btbnnyr wrote:
Anxiety goes down the more eggsperience you have, the more confident you are in lab.
Almost eberryone is initially anxious about working with lab equipment and are afraid of making mistakes to screw up the eggsperiment or breaking things.
It is not a huge deal to screw up an eggsperiment, it happens sometimes, and I never considered it a horrible thing from undergrads or anyone else who worked with me.
The timescale of academic research is long, and it is unlikely that screwing up an eggsperiment will have important effects in long term.
I think that you should work on not focusing on the anxiety, as that will make things worse.
Also, do you have a therapist for anxiety, I think reducing anxiety in eberrything will benefit you in long term, much more than telling people about autism, as they probably won't understand anything about autism.
I don't consider not telling people about autism hiding anything, as I don't see a reason to tell people about it or an autoimmune disorder that I have unless these are highly relevant to what I am doing, like my professor knows about autism since it is part of our research (I didn't tell anyone else in lab, I just let them infer it or get it through rumor mill, probably many people who know me still don't know), and the autoimmune disorder is much less relevant to anything in lab.
About doing random things in lab, there is nothing wrong with doing random things while waiting for something to finish.
No one eggspects each other to focus on some constructive activity all the time, in my eggsperience it is particularly hard to focus on reading anything in lab.
As aside, the kind of undergrad that eberryone most wants and likes is the kind who becomes independent quickly and can take over a part of a project or even whole project that one has no time to do oneself.
Almost eberryone is initially anxious about working with lab equipment and are afraid of making mistakes to screw up the eggsperiment or breaking things.
It is not a huge deal to screw up an eggsperiment, it happens sometimes, and I never considered it a horrible thing from undergrads or anyone else who worked with me.
The timescale of academic research is long, and it is unlikely that screwing up an eggsperiment will have important effects in long term.
I think that you should work on not focusing on the anxiety, as that will make things worse.
Also, do you have a therapist for anxiety, I think reducing anxiety in eberrything will benefit you in long term, much more than telling people about autism, as they probably won't understand anything about autism.
I don't consider not telling people about autism hiding anything, as I don't see a reason to tell people about it or an autoimmune disorder that I have unless these are highly relevant to what I am doing, like my professor knows about autism since it is part of our research (I didn't tell anyone else in lab, I just let them infer it or get it through rumor mill, probably many people who know me still don't know), and the autoimmune disorder is much less relevant to anything in lab.
About doing random things in lab, there is nothing wrong with doing random things while waiting for something to finish.
No one eggspects each other to focus on some constructive activity all the time, in my eggsperience it is particularly hard to focus on reading anything in lab.
As aside, the kind of undergrad that eberryone most wants and likes is the kind who becomes independent quickly and can take over a part of a project or even whole project that one has no time to do oneself.
I never screwed up whole experiments in the lab but I made some small mistakes (I remember for example putting too much or too little enzyme into a few of the samples when synthesising cDNA from RNA), which made me really anxious and angry with myself.
My therapy situation is a bit complicated but basically no, I'm not in therapy. I need it but society expects me to manage on my own so my psychologist (who I've been seeing for my AS and anxiety/depression) saw fit to leave me on my own for a while (indefinitely). A decision I'm not really happy with.
Anyway, I really hope I'll get less and less anxious the more experienced I get. Still don't know what the heck to do about the social situations at the lab but yeah.
About doing random things in the lab (browsing the internet etc): I was afraid of doing that last year because I didn't (and still don't) know what people expected of me in the lab so I was worried someone would get angry or something if I didn't work all the time. Similarly, I was also worried about leaving work early. I was working from 9am to 5pm and a lot of people in my group left at 4:30 or 4:50 etc., but I always waited until 5pm sharp because I was told to work until 5pm. So even if I had nothing to do and didn't have time to start a new immunohistochemistry or whatever, I always waited until 5pm to leave. I find it confusing when they say you're supposed to work until 5pm but then other people leave earlier. I don't understand what's OK and what isn't. I also don't like not knowing what's expected of me. Do you know what I mean?
btbnnyr
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29 Jan 2015, 3:56 am
This is a summer research program, right?
In that case, what is eggspected is something more or less conforming to 9-5 pm per weekday in terms of total number of hours, but it is not so rigid that people will get mad if you leave at 4pm one day or arrive at 10am another day.
Sometimes, you might have to stay later for an eggsperiment to finish, or work part of a weekend day if you need to attend to something on consecutive days.
Generally, lab people aren't really focused on hours and times of their undergrads, unless someone takes a lot of time off for no good reason.
They also don't mind if you browse internetz or watch videos on youtube while waiting for eggsperiments to finish, it would only be a problem if that is what someone did instead of eggsperiments.
Basically, their eggspectation is that you will help them do eggsperiments, while learning how to do them by yourself (including making mistakes doing them), and you will learn how to write science reports and give science presentations.
A lot of people enjoy having an undergrad work with them, usually no one forces them to have one, and they all volunteered to be a mentor.
They probably eggspect you to attend group meetings, but I don't think that people generally care if you attend social events, but I would show up to more than one of them, but ackshuly most labs I have been in had few social events, and they were usually on campus and laid-back, and I knew the lab people, so it was not bad attending them.
_________________
Drain and plane and grain and blain your brain, and then again,
Propane and butane out of the gas main, your blain shall sustain!
30 Jan 2015, 12:33 am
btbnnyr wrote:
This is a summer research program, right?
Correct.
btbnnyr wrote:
In that case, what is eggspected is something more or less conforming to 9-5 pm per weekday in terms of total number of hours, but it is not so rigid that people will get mad if you leave at 4pm one day or arrive at 10am another day.
Sometimes, you might have to stay later for an eggsperiment to finish, or work part of a weekend day if you need to attend to something on consecutive days.
Generally, lab people aren't really focused on hours and times of their undergrads, unless someone takes a lot of time off for no good reason.
They also don't mind if you browse internetz or watch videos on youtube while waiting for eggsperiments to finish, it would only be a problem if that is what someone did instead of eggsperiments.
Basically, their eggspectation is that you will help them do eggsperiments, while learning how to do them by yourself (including making mistakes doing them), and you will learn how to write science reports and give science presentations.
A lot of people enjoy having an undergrad work with them, usually no one forces them to have one, and they all volunteered to be a mentor.
They probably eggspect you to attend group meetings, but I don't think that people generally care if you attend social events, but I would show up to more than one of them, but ackshuly most labs I have been in had few social events, and they were usually on campus and laid-back, and I knew the lab people, so it was not bad attending them.
Sometimes, you might have to stay later for an eggsperiment to finish, or work part of a weekend day if you need to attend to something on consecutive days.
Generally, lab people aren't really focused on hours and times of their undergrads, unless someone takes a lot of time off for no good reason.
They also don't mind if you browse internetz or watch videos on youtube while waiting for eggsperiments to finish, it would only be a problem if that is what someone did instead of eggsperiments.
Basically, their eggspectation is that you will help them do eggsperiments, while learning how to do them by yourself (including making mistakes doing them), and you will learn how to write science reports and give science presentations.
A lot of people enjoy having an undergrad work with them, usually no one forces them to have one, and they all volunteered to be a mentor.
They probably eggspect you to attend group meetings, but I don't think that people generally care if you attend social events, but I would show up to more than one of them, but ackshuly most labs I have been in had few social events, and they were usually on campus and laid-back, and I knew the lab people, so it was not bad attending them.
Thanks for the information. It's difficult to get people to actually tell you what they expect from you, which is problematic. Anyway, I'm doing my best. Last summer I got to learn four different things/techniques in the lab and I seem to remember the supervisor telling me I'll only focus one of them next summer so hopefully things will get a little easier. I think it's rather confusing doing several different things at the same-ish time. Focusing on one thing sounds better.
The social situations in the lab I found the most difficult were lunch breaks and an evening at a restaurant with the lab group. I spent most of the lunch breaks eating alone and reading a book. In the beginning I ate with the others but I quickly noticed how nobody talked to me and I didn't know what to say to them, plus it was really noisy, which made me tired and resulted in headaches. I always felt really bad about going to lunch by myself though and I felt like I needed to hide so that no one saw me.
