Tips For Surviving Science Lab As A Student

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Whether you’re in a physics, biology or chemistry laboratory these are some basic rules or optional tips you should use.  And below that are also some mistakes & weird things that I’ve seen in lab.  This advice is based on my experiences and observations as a current student.

At least scan through the lab procedure before attending class.  This is obvious but if you’re really busy it’s very hard to do this and not just wait til you’re in lab.  This is key because you never know what your lab instructor is going to do.  Some instructors don’t lecture before lab because they might expect you to know this and have read the instructions.  So you could be going into lab not knowing what to do, wasting precious lab time reading the procedure and asking other students for help.  It’s also important because your lab procedures may build off the previous procedures you might not know or remember how to do.  Not scanning through the procedure before wastes time, annoys instructors and other students.

Pay attention to your lab instructor.  May seem really obvious to say this but believe it or not a lot of people do not do this.  I don’t even do this sometimes, but most of the time you end up regretting it.  You may think you know what to do but anything can happen before hand behind the scenes.  I attend a large university so there could be 10-20 lab sections that are doing the same experiment or using the same materials.  Students f-up, spill or waste materials.  If you’re not paying attention and your lab instructor announces a change somewhere in the procedure either with lab equipment or chemicals used, you’ll be lost and have to prove you weren’t paying attention by asking the instructor or other students.  btw, I recommend asking students first because the teacher usually is busy helping other students that didn’t pay attention.

Know the lab safety procedures.  Extremely important as much of the equipment, chemicals and bacteria can be very harmful.  Also wear proper gear like lab coats and gym shoes.  Remember, no scandals or shorts in the lab.  Though, some teachers are going to be lax on the “no shorts” rule, they are rather strict on the “no scandals” rule, at least at my school.  This tip also goes along with paying attention to your instructor because they will often tell you lab safety rules that aren’t listed in your textbook.  Oh, and also be careful not to bump into any students, it freaks us out.  Also, be careful with flames, which I’ll mention later but the girl is lucky I didn’t catch on fire.

We all make mistake, keep a positive attitude and lighten up.  As students it’s expected that you’ll  make mistakes.  When you do make a mistake, especially one that requires you to do the whole experiment over again, don’t whine about it.  Just let your instructor know what you did, clean up and start over again.  Then, don’t have a pissed off attitude about it, lighten up.   Also, if you make a mistake, don’t try to rush through the experiment again because you could not only make a mistake, but you could hurt yourself and miss something.  Also, laugh and joke with the instructor in an appropriate way and don’t be rude, cause they’ll just kick you out of class.  Don’t be too playful cause it makes for awkward moments.

Don’t be a prude and/or don’t annoy other classmates.  This could go under the previous rule but it needs it’s own category.  First, don’t be a stuck up prude.  If you’re asked a question by a fellow student, answer it.  Don’t blow people off because it makes for bad lab atmosphere and it’s just common respect.  If you have an extra flame loop in your drawer, and the student next to you doesn’t have one, then tell them they can borrow it.  It’s extremely annoying to see this type of behavior in lab whether you’re an onlooker or involved.  Second, don’t be an annoying person.  If you come to class completely unprepared, don’t follow another student around the lab asking them what, why and how they’re doing something.  I mean it’s ok a few times but if you’re asking a student for help the entire lab period then that’s annoying as hell.

Quick observation is that prude types are usually the really smart students.  Smart students get asked a lot of questions from inexperienced students and the cycle of annoyance on both sides just continues.  So, it’s best people neither be smart ass prudes or dumb ass peers.  My advice is just be cordial and reasonable.  I tend to play it low.  I try not to come off as a smart ass because, well, I’m not but also because I don’t want to be that one of the 1-2 students that most people go to when they don’t want to ask the teacher a question.

Now on to more important stuff.  Write everything down in your lab notebook.  This is very crucial as things can go by quickly in a lab.  This is part of being a scientist, which is recording your observations.  If your chemical turns yellow, write that down.  Even though the lab data is for your understanding so you can write a lab report, try to use accurate terminology.  Colorless and clear are not the same thing.  If you’re working with a lab partner then terminology is important so no one gets confused and you don’t receive a phone call asking to explain your lab data.  Also, to avoid the dreaded lab partner phone call, make sure both of you get each others information before leaving the class and ask questions if needed.  If you’re observing under a microscope, draw, draw, draw, I cannot stress this enough.  If you can’t draw at least, decent, then eventually learn  how to especially if you’re a biology student.  All you need to do is be able to distinguish certain organs or bacteria under the microscope.  So, a only a rough sketch would be needed.  Seriously, write everything including your lab instructor notes.  Remember, lab notes don’t have to be perfect, make sure you write in pen.  If you make a mistake it’s best to strike the mistake out but not completely, and don’t use white out, some professors will mark you off for that.  Plus, if you have to turn in your lab notes then you most likely get the benefit of the doubt if you make a mistake and the teacher knows what you did wrong.

Don’t be a pain in the ass.  Everyone hates that student that’s always saying “ew, I don’t wanna touch or cut open a bug”.  This is self explanatory so I’ll leave it at that.

Remember you are on a schedule.  Basically, don’t be a slow ass.  You don’t want to be that last student in lab still trying to finish their experiment.  Remember, your lab instructor is most likely a graduate student which means they also have $hit to do.  Don’t go too fast but remember to watch the time.  If you at least follow the first two steps then you should be ok.  But, I have known someone that did read and pay attention but they were unsure of themselves and kept asking questions.  Which takes me to the last tip…

Be confident. If you know you’ve read the instructions and everything is going well, don’t second guess yourself.  Granted, if you see the person next to you is using HCl and you’re using NaOH then double check with the person because that person could be about to screw up.  But, if you’re constantly second guessing yourself even on experiments you’ve done before then it’s going to waste time that you don’t have and you could make a mistake.  Also, it can be rather annoying if you’re constantly asking your instructor “is this right? Am I doing it correctly?”.  Just be confident in the work you’ve done.

Now, here’s some things that I’ve seen in lab.

1. Girl leaves her experiment running while she leaves the class and goes to get something out of her car.  Her experiment boils over and she has to start over again.  Good thing is that she kept a positive attitude but that’s basically not following lab safety procedures, don’t leave running experiment unattended.
2. Microbiology, a girl behind me knocks the flame off her desk nearly burning my hair.  She didn’t even need to turn on the flame as the instructor was still instructing.  Wasn’t being careful and thus not following lab safety rules. I didn’t freak out though, so I was VERY much keeping a positive attitude lol.
3. Guy in chemistry wasn’t following the procedure, used the wrong chemical and when it spilled on his hand it started bubbling up.  Apparently, didn’t read the procedure or pay attention to instructor.
4. Girl is holding beaker filled with some chemical.  She wasn’t wearing her lab glasses.  She goes to wipe the sweat off her forehead with the hand that she’s holding the beaker with.  The chemicals spill on her face and now a pretty dumb girl is now an ugly dumb girl.  Do you wanna be an ugly dumb girl?? No, well make sure you first, follow the lab safety rules and wear safety glasses.  And also don’t be stupid cause that was pretty stupid.
5. I break my mercury thermometer and me and my teacher can’t find the mercury on the floor.  There’s supposed to be some special procedure done when a mercury thermometer breaks but I guess cause my instructor was new, he didn’t know and the girls in the science store room called him stupid.  I wasn’t paying attention and my instructor didn’t follow the rules so we both broke the lab safety rules. But, I’d like to note that my instructor was really cute/sexy and just came here from Japan so I was willing to overlook this.
6. My lab partner in biology kept complaining about her fear of bugs.  I had to dissect every bug.  Also, when it was time to dissect worms and star fish, she kept saying “ew”.  It was annoying as hell and no one cared about her damn gross outness.  she was definitely being a pain in my ass.
7. My lab partner was copying off someones lab notebook and I playfully closed the notebook.  He kindof yelled at me saying “why did you do that?!” and then rolled his eyes.  Kind of awkward even though I turned to my friend and started giggling, I’m sure he was still pissed.  Anyways, this is an example of not lightening up.
8. Boys in the back of the lab kept goofing off in the back of the class and even at one point throwing those poppers on the floor making it sound like a test tube popped.  Rest of us were complaining about their high school behavior and we thought the teacher should kick them out of the class and she was being a pushover.  Little did we know the whole time she was taking points off of their lab grade and they all had to repeat the course.  They weren’t paying attention to the instructor, not following safety rules, being pains in the ass, and annoying other classmates. And guess what! They all wanted to become doctors, lol

Well, thats everything I can think of and remember to help you have an easy going lab session.  Hope this helps or prepares you in some way.  If I left something off, leave a comment.