What I wish was different
I wish that I had a team to interact with and a sense of purpose. I was sat down at a desk on my first day, was told what I had to do, and was simply left without much else. The expectation was to sit at the desk from 8am to 5pm everyday, and if you had questions, save them for when someone comes to check on you. My supervisor rarely ever checked on me and made no effort to help onboard me or even tell me where her office was or how to reach her. You're just there to as an unpaid number pusher for someone who doesn't want to do their job while other people in the lab sit around doing nothing. There was also zero flexibility if you have even the most minor commitment outside to being glued to the desk of the basement of Beaumont. If you weren't there for any part of your 8am-5pm, they will be the first to tell you, yet management remains absent to answer your questions about the research. There was no challenge, no testing of your abilities, no chance to learn, no interaction with any other researchers or staff, just testing your abilities to type into a spreadsheet.