Hi all!

I am just starting up my second year of grad school in PhD program, and after spending my 1st year "floating" and not very sure of what I wanted to focus my research on; I feel that I now have more concrete ideas to get started on. While this is good and a step in the right direction, my confidence is still shaken because I feel like my knowledge of lab techniques is not where it should be. I haven't worked hands on in a lab in about a year and a half (I had a few internships previously), and my skills are completely lacking. I know that you aren't supposed to know how to do everything, but I'm super willing to learn I just hope that's enough.

I also don't want to be seen as some novice researcher who can't hold their own.

Thanks!

If I were you I would start with some basic techniques just to practice - miniprep, DNA extraction, PCR etc.

Yea that was my plan. I've used all of those techniques before just not in some time, so I guess I'm afraid of being "rusty". Not to mention actually using them to carry out my own research and not someone else's like I was doing previously.

Yeah I know what you mean... work on the weekend when there's maybe noone around if you are worried about it :P