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Stress management 1. Seek help in difficult situations (Hui Zong)
Sometimes the project just seems to get to a dead end. It happens to me quite often. For example, unable to detect any biochemical defects of a biological inactive protein, a stable cell line showed null results after 2 month selection and cloning. It really made me under sever stress, affecting my thinking and making me sleepless at night. One day I talked to our postdoc in our lab (Ariel Castro) about my situation. Of course he couldn't solve all the problems for me, but he did talk me out of it. The key idea is to seek help. When I felt stressed out, I often just shut up and try to fight a way out by myself. Actually the correct way is to talk to other people and seek help. The first person I should talk to is my advisor. He is the one who has the responsibility to help and has the best knowledge about my project. In addition to the advisor, other fellow students and postdocs are also good sources of help. Another source of help is my committee members. Dr. DePaoli-Roach told me that if everything works fine, a committee meeting is not very critical. However, when I felt a project might fail, a committee meeting will be necessary. They will either help me design more experiments to revive the current project or suggest me to change project. Their help actually will smoothen my graduation process. Anyway, if you feel stressed out for a while, just seek some help ASAP.
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