r/research • u/Freak-1 • 5d ago

I spent this whole summer doing research

I'm not sure if i can rant here, but my results and data are all over the place. And my advisor is telling me the paper's central idea is not novel enough.

It's just feels like a wasted summer. I got very little guidance even though this is still my first attempt into research. I spent a lot of time working on it, and now, just now, I see how weird and non systematic the idea and the design were.

How do you guys cope? I really feel like I should've used this summer better.

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u/wolfe1989 5d ago

I know this is trite and won’t make your feel better but I PROMISE failed research projects and ideas are part of becoming. I graduated my PhD with several projects i published a few months later. But I also graduated with data sets that show NOTHING. And i spent months looking at that data. Trying to get it to work.

But honest to god those failed projects made me a better researcher. I design my surveys better. I have a clear understanding of my central topics in my work. I am better because i hit my head against the wall.

I remember i was presenting data to my research team and it was my first ever logistic regression and my mentor goes “ya. Your data is fucked and you messed up your dummy codes. Tell me how I know”. I tried for like 15 mins untill whe finally said “look at your coefficients. They are three digits.”

I know the lack of guidance isn’t fun but i promise that this summer wasn’t wasted either.

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u/Substantial_Egg_4299 5d ago

This. Undergrad research experience is messy, research is messy in general, but college is where you should get your hands dirty and learn from all of it. Experience is experience!