When Nobel Laureate, Otto Warburg, was asked by a PhD student in 1967 about the best way of training beginners in research, this is his reply.
“Dear Mr. Buckley,
Thank you for your letter of 8 November. If you wish to become a scientist, you must ask a successful scientist to accept you in his laboratory, even if at the beginning you would only clean his test tubes. If you observe carefully what he does, you will learn how discoveries are made.
It is necessary to know already much before you go to a master.
The earlier you go, the greater will be your chance to become a discoverer too.
I am, Yours sincerely,
Source: ‘Otto Warburg’, by Hans Krebs, page 62.
Hans Krebs was a student of Otto Warburg. He became a Nobel Laureate.