Anxiety Self Help

 As part of my Master's degree, I've been assigned to work with an engineering research group on a side project. I'm trained in biology, myself. I'm rather clueless about a lot of what they're doing, yet I'm expected to understand everything and take the initiative. The truth is, I'M A GODDAMN BIOLOGIST and it would take me months, if not years of study, to understand all these models and equations in-depth. So don't bother me with them, because they're beyond me. Figure out what the f@ck you're doing, then consult me for the biological stuff. I can't take the initiative in an engineering project. I can offer advice, I can write things, I can do experiments, but I need you the engineer to tell me what to do.

Meanwhile, the engineers themselves are pretty clueless when it comes to anything biological, or anything experimental. 

This is a goddamn circus. I feel like I'm wasting my time.

I'm the only native English-speaker in the group, so I was given a draft paper yesterday to proofread. My co-supervisor is going to present it at a conference in a few days time. But frankly, the paper sucks. It's incredibly poorly written, and I've been up most of the night trying to make it coherent and flowy. It was written by a PhD student. Come on, you can do better than that! And some of the statements were just false. A lot of the information presented was presented was unsourced. Some of the sources are just sh*t. The paper is quite vacuous, the main original contribution being a few experiments and measurements done by me. By the way, I was on a tight schedule and nobody knew what the f@ck we were doing (myself included), so I'm fairly certain the data sucks.

This project is a wreck.

My Comments From: ohumawkward Jun 23 2010, 11:42 pm You can do it! Don't give up! From: Dee123 Jun 23 2010, 8:16 am I have always found that when I work with others in this type of situation it turns out a farce. We have our own ways of doing things....and seems like they are trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.' You must have an adviser.....might be time to speak to that person about your situation. You have a right to feel frustrated and angry...... Wish I could help...... All I can do is offer support. I hope things get better Dee