{"id":1607,"date":"2021-03-08T00:00:05","date_gmt":"2021-03-07T23:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.exeter.ac.uk\/doctoralcollege\/?p=1607"},"modified":"2021-03-08T00:00:05","modified_gmt":"2021-03-07T23:00:05","slug":"scientist-without-a-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/doctoralcollege\/2021\/03\/08\/scientist-without-a-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientist without a lab"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Jennifer is now a third year PhD student in the biosciences department. Jennifer looks at how elevated CO<\/span><\/span>2<\/span><\/span>, commonly found in fish farms, impacts lumpfish growth and behaviour. Lumpfish are farmed to be deployed into salmon pens across the U.K. and Ireland to remove sea lice, a parasite which graze on\u00a0<\/span><\/span>salmon\u00a0<\/span><\/span>and\u00a0<\/span><\/span>can\u00a0<\/span><\/span>make\u00a0<\/span><\/span>salmon\u00a0<\/span><\/span>vulnerable\u00a0<\/span><\/span>to infections and breathing difficulties. Jennifer has 4 main parts to her research; a\u00a0<\/span><\/span>partnership with\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Ocean Matters (the U.K.\u2019s largest lumpfish farm), experimental work in the University\u00a0<\/span><\/span>of<\/span><\/span>\u00a0Exeter Aquatic Resources Centre (ARC), sample analysis in the biosciences department, and data analysis\u00a0<\/span><\/span>(the dreaded\u00a0<\/span><\/span>deskwork<\/span><\/span>)<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

When the first lockdown hit\u00a0in March 2020,\u00a0I was ~ 18 months into my PhD.\u00a0For students in biosciences,\u00a0this\u00a0is\u00a0upgrade time (the meeting in which MPhil students are assessed and a review panel decide whether you have made enough progress to \u2018upgrade\u2019 your degree qualification from MPhil to PhD).\u00a0I felt that my upgrade could not have come at a worse time- I was suffering from pretty much\u00a0every \u2018<\/b>classic<\/i><\/b>\u2019 symptom of burnout<\/b>\u00a0which was not a great start to working from home;\u00a0I felt tired, unmotivated, easily frustrated, and like nothing I did was right.\u00a0I wasn\u2019t used to trying to sit at my desk for 8+ hours a day and it was really getting to me,\u00a0and those around me.\u00a0I eventually\u00a0had to push my upgrade until I felt ready, which was a couple of months later; my assessment panel were really supportive, reassuring me that I was not supposed to feel normal right now- we were in a pandemic, and it was ok to feel down and unproductive while we adjusted to working from home.<\/p>\n

Back in \u2018normal<\/i>\u2019 times I\u00a0would be\u00a0at my desk\u00a0on campus, off\u00a0tinkering with\u00a0my experiment in the ARC, running samples\u00a0in the\u00a0lab, or in meetings, all in a day.\u00a0Looking back, this\u00a0\u2018all over the\u00a0place<\/b>\u2019<\/b>\u00a0working schedule\u00a0<\/b>was hectic but<\/b>\u00a0felt<\/b>\u00a0normal<\/b>, and it made me feel productive<\/b>.\u00a0When lockdown hit,\u00a0I was\u00a0suddenly\u00a0a scientist without a lab, without fish, without new data, and I\u00a0really\u00a0struggled to adapt my day to being sat in the same place for hours on end.\u00a0I had so much time on my hands, but I wasn\u2019t doing enough, I wasn\u2019t being productive enough\u2026<\/p>\n

Back in March 2020,\u00a0I was\u00a0a couple of weeks away from starting a\u00a0long-term\u00a0experiment\u00a0having\u00a0just\u00a0transported\u00a0hundreds of\u00a0lumpfish from Ocean Matters\u00a0to Exeter\u00a0(only\u00a0a\u00a0500\u00a0mile round trip\u2026),\u00a0which was\u00a0not\u00a0great timing. This experiment\u00a0would have\u00a0informed\u00a0two thirds of\u00a0my thesis\u00a0and\u00a0is still\u00a0on hold,\u00a0almost a year later, which\u00a0still fills me with stress as I can feel the hand in clock counting down<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Thankfully,\u00a0I was able to get back on campus in August 2020 and completed\u00a0a short experiment with the fish I brought back 6 months earlier. Not the\u00a0experiment\u00a0that I was\u00a0originally\u00a0planning, but one which has progressed my\u00a0lab\u00a0skills\u00a0and\u00a0will inform a future experiment that I hope to complete later this year.\u00a0In August,\u00a0I was\u00a0so glad<\/i>\u00a0to get back on campus, back working with my fish, tinkering with my experimental set up,\u00a0and\u00a0learning in person, but that feeling didn\u2019t last long\u2026\u00a0Lab life\u00a0felt slow and I\u00a0started to feel all of the things which I had been feeling working from home- the burnout, the frustrations, all of it. I actually missed working from home!<\/p>\n

Working from home has definitely allowed me to\u00a0gain appreciation\u00a0<\/b>of<\/b>\u00a0what productivity means to me<\/b>.\u00a0The little jobs which I often left to fall to the bottom of my to-do list have become incorporated into my day. Thanks to my reduced commute (3 seconds rather than 30 minutes), I don\u2019t feel guilty taking time out of my working days to do some chores, run errands, or to take a\u00a0long\u00a0lunch break to\u00a0do some exercise. Each day is different,\u00a0some days still\u00a0<\/b>feel long and like\u00a0<\/b>a<\/b>\u00a0massive\u00a0<\/b>struggle<\/b>, but I no longer feel the same\u00a0pressure to be constantly working and constantly\u00a0<\/b>be\u00a0<\/b>\u2018productive\u2019<\/b>.<\/p>\n

We are still in a pandemic, we still can\u2019t hug our friends,\u00a0and we still can\u2019t\u00a0knock on our supervisor\u2019s door when we need help.<\/p>\n

Upon reviewing the past year, I know that\u00a0I like to stay busy, but that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean lots of meetings and lots of running around<\/b>. To feel happy and like I am making progress\u00a0with my PhD, I need to focus on one\u00a0or two\u00a0projects\u00a0at a time,\u00a0learn all that I can,\u00a0see them through\u00a0to the end,\u00a0and really try to get\u00a0them\u00a0right. For me, mixing\u00a0campus\u00a0work with\u00a0working from home is\u00a0what is best, at least for now.\u00a0Every day\u00a0<\/b>I try to listen to my body and my mind and make sure that I put them first<\/b>,<\/b>\u00a0because nothing is worth the feeling of burnout that I felt last year<\/b>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jennifer is now a third year PhD student in the biosciences department. Jennifer looks at how elevated CO2, commonly found in fish farms, impacts lumpfish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nScientist without a lab - Doctoral College<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/doctoralcollege\/2021\/03\/08\/scientist-without-a-lab\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Scientist without a lab - Doctoral College\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jennifer is now a third year PhD student in the biosciences department. 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