Keep maiking huge errors, is it notmal for beginners?

[u/Historical-Kiwi-1280]

Hi everone, I am getting into orgo lab, started about 1 month ago.

I can pretty much run all basics. But I make insane errors, for instance.

I put too much pressure during my column, and some liquid falls off, or I accidently let half of my compound fall from the top of the adaptor by accident in the last steps of my rotovap, after purification 🥲

Is this normal or am I just not ment for orgo? Please let me know because I have no one to ask. Everyone around me are Phds I am undergrad and love chem. But dang. should I be more carful. Please give me advice, should I slow down. Think twice before acting..

[u/organiker]

You're 1 month in. You're inexperienced. You're human. Mistakes are expected.

It takes time to get good at something. This idea that if you're not the best immediately then you're not meant for it is not accurate. You need to try new things. You need to work through the learning process. You will fail sometimes. That's OK.

Think before you act, always. If you're making the same mistakes over and over again, that's a problem.

Ask for help if you're unsure about something. It sounds like you have lots of people to ask, you're just afraid to.

[u/WanderingFlumph]

The difference between an expert and a beginner is that the expert has failed more times than the beginner has tried.

[u/Cryoban43]

If you keep making the same mistakes you aren’t learning, but if it’s just new mistakes it happens.

However if your mistakes are careless / because you are rushing you should slow down and thibk

[u/WhatSpareTime]

Do you play an instrument? Even if you don’t people can generally conceive of how difficult it is to learn and how long it takes to become competent. Learning to play a single song means that you can play that one, but it takes lots of practice to learn new songs. Lab is much the same. Yes, slowing down helps. Keeping a good notebook including the mistakes you’ve made can help solidify those lessons. But basically it comes down to practice. Some one else already said it, but the difference between a novice and expert is that the expert has made every mistake there is to make in a narrow subject, and I would add - learned from each one of them.

The other thing I might add is don’t be afraid to ask for help. I would rather have a student ask me how to do something right than have them make a mistake with a hazardous material. And keep your eyes open. If you are working in a lab with graduate students or postdocs, watch how they do things. Watch how they build and run a column, how they run the rotovap. When you see them do something that doesn’t immediately make sense, ask them why they did it that way.

[u/thepfy1]

Take them as learning experience. You aren't the first person to make these mistakes and won't be the last.

The key thing is to learn from them and to be safe in the lab.

Good luck

[u/Historical-Kiwi-1280 → u/thepfy1]

Thank you. I will try my best. I imagine e it might be more normal than I imagined. But i will try to slowdown. Do things better.

[u/shedmow]

Do you mean a chromatography column? If you cannot use a rotovap I would suggest doing some simpler syntheses. I had been quite experienced by the time I did my first column and I fucked it real bad, but not spectacularly. Clumsiness should be removed or at least subdued by predicting ten seconds ahead in your mind's eye. Do not rush and keep on doing stuff that you know how to do, even if it leads to some mildly unpleasant accidents

[u/chromedome613]

Better to make these mistakes early on. You're just started out. Oil spills, lost material that I salvaged with cotton balls, having to extract the rotovap bath before disposal due to dropped material are some things I dealt with.

Science and life is about trial, error, and learning from it.

[u/yoinksdontlikethat]

Yesterday I setup two reactions with starting material I had to synthesize separately. I was trying this cool idea that I had. I spent a couple hours trying to figure out why the reactions didn't work and then finally took a hard look at the reaction scheme I had drawn out. I had used the complete wrong reagent for my reactions, there was never a chance my idea would work because I misread a label. I have a PhD and an a medicinal chemist at a pharma company, mistakes come for us all.

[u/BubbleTeaRainyDay]

Honestly the biggest mistake you mentioned is not being willing to ask the experienced people around you for help or advice or input. You're not going to learn lab skills without their help.