I'm a first year PhD student and I somehow realised that entire concept of lab rotation is a complete waste of time, coz obviously we all find and chose our doctoral advisor even before we apply for the grad school and then we get an informal approval from him and then we apply to grad school under his guidance so obviously we already are set with a doctoral advisor and a lab and actually spending some weeks in a lab dosent really tell you a lot and that's what I have felt actually it doesn't tell you anything about the supervisor or even the group and maybe it may make.you a little aware of lab environment that's all so basically it's a complete waste and it's not just me who's feeling this but the metrics like PhD completion rate mostly across all disciplines if 50% and a major reason for a lot of people to drop.out is their mismatch with their supervisor and that clearly is the failure of also the entire concept of lab rotation , so why dj we still haaaabbbveeee trhhhhiiiidsddss , lab rotation concept fails entirely and not at all useful and just a complete waste of timeeeeee???????

I have been to a couple of other labs in the UK for short periods. I have always went to do a specific test or experiment but I enjoyed every visit. I got to learn new methods and experience different working environments/styles. I had a purpose to be there and that purpose forced me to interact with other students. You are associating each lab with a supervisor but a lab is really a place to do work and if you don't do much work you aren't getting the maximum benefits. Though if you don't enjoy the work, you can still learn from the experience. What I am trying to say, find the positive parts of the visits otherwise you will be bogged down in the sheer futility of the whole PhD thing.