The phase where nothing makes sense
I want to reassure you that it is okay to have no idea what's going on.
Nothing making sense is often the start of the learning journey.
When you start volunteering in a lab, you'll probably start off without (m)any skills and without much clear direction. Hopefully, the person that agreed to oversee you will provide the guidance you need.
Asking your supervisor for some relevant papers would show great initiative.
Consider asking if they could send you a paper or two, ideally a review paper, to help get you started. The papers might not make sense when you first read them, but you will start to recognize words and they will come to make sense in time. Everyone that eventually developed expertise started from a point where papers they read didn't make sense!
You don't have to try to make papers make sense. They won't, then they will.
Just make sure you sleep enough! Your brain will eventually connect the dots.
If you read the first paper and nothing makes sense, that is okay!
That is normal. Scientific articles contain a lot of field-specific jargon and it takes time to learn the vocabulary of science. There is no short-cut. You just have to get through the initial phase where nothing makes sense. You just keep reading and, over time, you'll start noticing patterns: methods you've seen before, author names you start to recognize. As you continue picking context, concepts and paradigms will start coming together to make sense as you gain a basic grasp of the research area. Just keep reading and following the general advice of your mentors and this book (e.g. using Zotero).
Asking questions
When you're in a lab meeting, make sure it is clear that you are paying attention and listening.
Eyes up and alert. Don't stare at your phone or laptop. Don't be doing other things.
What about asking questions?
Two things are simultaneously true:
- It is okay to remain quiet, especially as an undergrad. You're usually not expected to contribute much, but do make sure you look like you are paying attention.
- It is okay to speak up. This includes asking questions, including clarifying questions, and this includes raising potential criticisms you think you notice.
It is okay to remain quiet
Do not talk just for the sake of making noise with your mouth.
What if you don't understand?
Well... it depends.
The impulse not to "waste" the time of everyone else in the meeting is reasonable!
Some people might tell you that "there are no stupid questions" so go ahead and ask anything. People that say this mean well and want to encourage you, but it isn't really honest when it comes to group meetings.
I'm sure you've heard some "stupid questions" during undergraduate lectures!
For example, when someone in a lecture asks if such-and-such will be on the exam or when someone asks about something written in the course syllabus. Wasting time by asking inappropriate questions is real and annoying!
My advice is to ask up to two clarifying questions if you don't understand something, but refrain from asking several basic questions during the same meeting.
For example, if someone is presenting an idea and they start using some jargon, it would often be okay to ask if they could quickly define the term they're using to help you follow. Same goes for acronyms!
However, do this sparingly!
If you get the sense that your questions are slowing down the meeting, I'd recommend writing down your questions as notes rather than asking them aloud. This will provide a list of questions for you to follow up on after the meeting. It is okay to ask a question or two to help get your bearings, but if you are totally lost and the other people in the meeting aren't lost, rather than halt the lab meeting to address something everyone else already understands, you can make a note so you can look up the answers later.
You can make time after the meeting is over to ask your questions.
The right person might be your peers, the person making the presentation, some graduate students, a post-doc, or the PI themselves. You can ask a person one-on-one questions outside the lab meeting and they can help you understand without anyone else having to wait.
Why not keep asking until everything is clear?
In group meetings, several people have put their time aside.
There is usually a purpose to the group meeting so people want to achieve that purpose without too many interruptions. Questions are interruptions that side-track a meeting. That is okay in small doses, but too many questions consumes limited time. Plus, people that already understand a concept don't want to sit idle while that concept is explained to someone else; that isn't a valued use of their time, even if that would be valuable to you.
It is okay to ask basic questions outside lab meetings.
In fact, it shows great initiative and respect, especially if you have tried to find answers in papers or by other means already! If you are asking someone a question, the answer shouldn't be easily found by an internet search; if it is, you should have found it yourself by searching, obviating the need to ask.
It is okay to speak up
Eventually, you should be comfortable asking questions in the appropriate environment.
After reading and learning, you may develop more thoughtful, substantive questions. Undergrad questions can be great because they can bring up issues that more experienced people overlook. Sometimes, grad students and PIs can "miss the forest for the trees" because they are so deeply embedded in the research paradigms being used. Sometimes, it helps to have a novice ask a question to bring everyone back to "the bigger picture".
How will you know when you have substantive questions?
I don't think I can tell you when your research area will "make sense". That will depend on what you study and how you process information as a person. Ultimately, it will when it does and no sooner. It takes as much time it takes. You should eventually notice a transition from questions about definitions of concepts to questions about interactions between concepts and, eventually, to making hypothetical predictions about how concepts might or might not interact. Part of developing expertise is building up a sense of what you know and what you don't. The process of becoming an expert will reveal itself through time. It isn't binary, either, of course; there's always more to learn. But, at the very least, you'll know you know something when other people start asking questions and you find yourself already knowing the answers. When you don't want to waste your time on basic questions other people ask, you'll know you've developed a baseline!
You can get up to speed and become a contributing member of the lab!
Grow into it. Let it take the time it takes.
Then, don't be afraid to ask questions or contribute once you get more comfortable.
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