My initial thoughts of research are that you tinker in a lab asking questions all day long figuring out how the world works one small step at a time. Every day I think you will be working in a lab either making things that will aide in a possible discovery or making some sort of discovery. However, even with all the work that goes into research there is no guarantee of finding anything. There will be frustrating times where no matter how hard you try somethings will just never turn out the way you want. Then you will have to go back to the drawing boards and try all over again a different way. However, the small successes along the way are so much sweeter because of all the trials that came before.
I have never done research before so this whole experience is a new one for me. Truthfully I am a anxious that I will mess up in the lab, but that is the only way that I will learn. I am working in the lab of Dr. Warren Grill this summer, and I have learned so much in such a short amount of time. In my first week, I was given the task of making a model that will eventually aide his lab in mirroring spinal chord stimulation which is really cool to me because if all goes well I would have made a tangible difference to the lab. I would never have expected that this is what I would be doing for my first week of research because my illusion of research is where I would tinker in a lab all day and eventually find a solution. Even in the first week of the program, my expectations of what research will hold for me has changed from the outrageous notion of finding an answer in a short time by just working hard to modeling then animal trials and finally human trials.
This summer I hope to be able to get something out of my lab and to give something to my lab. I want to get a possible mentor and ton of applicable knowledge on the subject of Bio-medical Engineering in the real world. I don’t want to be the only one benefiting from the relationship I have with the lab this summer. I want to be able to finish my own project and give them a nugget of information that is usable to their end goal of improving spinal chord stimulation. However, if I am not having fun in the lab I am doing something wrong, so I hope to enjoy myself this summer. So far, everything is all that I hoped just different.
