<p>I haven’t seen much, but at Columbia University I saw a graduate engineering lab and it was a mess. What I mean was that there were wires and electronics all over the place, it was dusty as hell, and it just looked like a cluttered environment. Also I’ve seen UConn chem labs and they were a mess as well, basically I couldn’t imagine myself doing lab work in that kind of environment. What do you do in labs as an undergraduate engineer anyway, and are you forced to work in them?</p>
<p>MatSE has different concentrations
-Metals
-Ceramics
-Polymers
-Electronic Materials
-Biomaterials</p>
<p>What has the most to do with chemistry you’d say and where can I find info on each specific concentration?</p>
<p>Not all graduate labs are a cluttered mess, but most are. The reason is because they are used. There is a lot of work that goes on in them, and we grad students are often under very strict, sometimes near-impossible deadlines, so cleaning is often skipped for the sake of getting more meaningful work done. I know that my lab (a wind tunnel facility) is very cluttered most of the time because we are a functioning research wind tunnel facility and are making constant upgrades to the facility while also trying to get our data. It is essentially an active construction site as well as workspace. That is how many labs also operate.</p>
<p>Usually as an undergraduate, you start out doing grunt work for the lab. Chances are you won’t have any experience in the area and will have to learn the procedures and the physics behind what happens in the lab before you can be entrusted with any meaningful projects. As you build up your experience, you often get more responsibility and better tasks. I have seen one or two undergrads nearly reach the point where they are treated on equal footing with half the grad students in the lab because they had been there so long and actually know what they are doing.</p>
<p>As for whether you will be forced to work in the lab, that depends on the nature of your job and your professor. If you build up the experience to be treated almost like a grad student, you will undoubtedly have to do a lot of lab work. If you just want to be a grunt who makes PowerPoint presentations for the higher-ups, I suppose you could stay out of the lab.</p>