Scored an awesome internship this summer, basically just have to get into the lab and put in the 30 hours anytime I want. I've been a high mileage guy for awhile and the plan is to be hitting around 140 a week for the summer.
I was tossing around some ideas for what my schedule might look like.
6 hour days all week.
7.5 hour days on M T W Th
7.5 hour days on M T Th F
10 hour days on M T Th
What would you go for?
first of all how did you get this thats awesome! second id go with one of the 4X 7.5s
10 hr days
From a running perspective, I would do 7.5 hr days M T Th F.
From a lab perspective I would do 7.5 hr days M T W Th. (Actually, I would do the 6 hrs MTWTh, but I think this option offers a compromise between running and labwork for a kid who still needs to enjoy summers! Nothing wrong with that at all.)
Assuming you mean a biomedical research lab, which I think is what most people mean when they say "lab," ideally you'd be in every day because there are often experiments that take multiple days to complete.
So I'm kind of surprised that they're letting you choose your schedule like this, because somebody who goes in for 10 hrs a day three times a week will be nowhere NEAR as productive as somebody who goes in 6 hours a day 5 days a week. And I can't believe they'd just let you take Wednesdays off too, which would mean that you can't start some experiments on Mondays or Tuesdays, depending on what experiments you'd be doing. And, for that matter, you couldn't start some on Thursday or Friday since you'd be off Saturday and Sunday too.
If you choose your last two schedule options you'd really just be doing somebody else's pipetting, which you can probably spin on a resume to be equivalent to something substantial, but it's not. There's just a gigantic qualitative difference between the contributions you can make intellectually when you're a pipette monkey vs. actually performing your own experiments.
If you really want to learn something, choose one of the first two options. Like I said, I think the second is a good compromise between trying to get the mileage in and actually getting something valuable out of the lab.
oh, 3x10.
Factor in the commute and getting ready to go. That saves at least 25% dead time. And it is nice to have the max number of days totally free.
Sorry for the follow up post, but I think what I meant to say in that mess of words is that it's easy to make a decision tree for you (although difficult to format it):
1. Which is more important: running or the lab?
2. By how much is it more important?
Running is more important by a lot: 3 10-hr days
Running is more important, but lab is important too: 7.5 hrs MT ThF
Education first, but running's right up there: 7.5 hrs M T W Th
Want to get as much out of the lab as you can and will work running around it: 6 hrs everyday
Honestly, I don't think you can go too wrong running-wise with any of the options, particularly if you have some flexibility with the time you come in or leave. I mean, even if you're working six hour days, that means coming in at 11 in the morning and leaving at 5, or coming in at 9 and leaving at 3. Pretty nice any way you slice it.
I'd start working doubles right away if we're you. 2.5 hours morning and night, with Sundays off. Maybe work a little bit harder once or twice a week (with full recovery). If you're feeling good after a few weeks of that, you can bump up your hours to 40-50 a week.