@suesa : I loved this post very much.
The person who had built this construct (another student, apparently) had managed to build a plasmid without marker gene and thus ruined 7 weeks of work for me.
So sad. Working with a group of people is good and bad. Sometimes it gives your great success, sometimes you struggle. I can understand how difficult it would be in a wet lab compared to a computational lab. By the way I thought you are an undergrad. (Or Am I wrong?) To get these experiences in the early stage of your career is great.
Yes, I don't have any degree yet :) but the labs at our university are generally willing to take in students for a few weeks, if they ask ahead of time. Most just never take the chance because there's no time. I was lucky that I had somr extra time to do this!