Advice for an Undergrad
Hi all, I am a last year undergrad who is working in photonics, mostly in the fabrication part. As my seniors, I wanted to get some advice from you guys. Right now, I am in my last year, and working for a professor who seems to be nice so far. Previously, I had some experiences which people may call as toxic environment. One of them being 4 month and another a year and a half.
So far, in this new group I have been working for more than 2 months now, and the professor gave me an opportunity to work on fabrication more, whereas in the previous one I couldn't do that no matter how much I tried to show that I was willing to. Anyways, in this group I got a support I needed. For instance, I wasn't sent to the clean room with no idea, at least I was told in every stage some of the rough things I need to do or I was accompanied, if it was my first time doing that task or if I had some problems earlier. I kinda have a PTSD from my previous experiences hence try not to get too happy if things are working in my way.
Due to some reasons, I cannot directly start as a PhD in this group and I will need to spend a year as a research assistant. During this 2 years, what would you recommend me observe and in your opinion how I shall improve better in my research?