They were crammed into dorm rooms of 2-4 beds and asked to spend their time in day rooms. Visitors were not allowed. Food was barely a means of nutrition, not anticipated entertainment. Staff was not interactive and was generally busy with their own duties, which included lots of observations & testing but did not include actual patient care. Bandwidth and other distractions (TV, personal DVD players) were not always working, and staff never really cared about fixing it. The primary entertainment quickly became gossiping and choosing sides. Participants would rat each other out to the staff if they didn't follow the study protocols or if someone had lied about their previous history.
Keep in mind that the company is paying you $2250 for roughly 228 hours of work, although admittedly you get to sleep through at least a quarter of it. Would your time be more productively spent on a job search, networking, phone calls, career fairs, query letters, and interviews? Or would you consider this a "paid vacation"?
