Why is research so hard???!! I'm amazed that people get ANY results, I'm having so much trouble even collecting all the bits I need to DO an experiment! It seems that you need to be in an established research group (been around for years) to make any significant scientific discoveries, the rest of us are just messing around. I don't just mean experimentally - I reckon it would take me about 20 years for me to learn enough well established science to come up with anything new. I guess that's why we're supposed to collaborate..........

............share knowledge, so every individual doesn't have to re-learn stuff, but does this really happen? It usually takes a lot of deciphering before I can repeat something I have seen in a paper. There are exceptions, but generally people are very secretive... Is research really worth all this stress and frustration? (I don't think so) Why not pack shelves for a living? (absolutely no offence intended by this - I often think I'd be a lot happier doing this). Is it just me???

You don't have to make massive discoveries in your PhD..even little discoveries like the refinement/optimization of a technique that aids an aspect of your lab work is enough. None of us are going to find a cure for diabetes or anything like that, but small discoveries can help along thw way - that's where us PhD stdents can help!!

Yeh I know what you mean, but when you get that satisfaction of getting published etc then its really coool cos then its all been worth it. I dunno... The research is difficult but politics within academia is alot harder to crack!!! Good Luck. Join some forums that are to do with ur research area!

No-one ever said research was stress free. Research is annoying, frustrating, stressful etc. Results will rarely go your way, but what makes you a good PhD student is that you look at all the angles, explain why things happen the way they do and develop upon that

Well, even collaborations go wrong. Our collaboration involved so many people that my name was kicked off the cell paper to make room for others. Our collaborators had smaller errorbars so we used that data. Leaves the question why I had to do severall experiments demanded for by the reviewers..

I don't relate, Sue....

oh, okay :)