This summer my research has been coming along well. Though the results are different than we initially hypothesized, we’ve still learned a lot about the transcription factor which I am studying. I’ve learned that when researching you need to be flexible and able to change your plans as results start pointing you in new directions. I’ve also learned that often you need to be able to power through the day-to-day monotony of research in order to have the exciting moments of relevant results. There is no guidebook for what results you should get, as often you are the first person studying a problem, and this summer as my project progresses I’ve learned more about how to plan out my schedule and to report my findings and successes to others.
I’ve also been learning a lot from the mistakes and frustrations of lab research. Dr. Grunwald was pretty accurate when he said “you become a slave to your experiments”. Most of my work this summer has been performing time courses. To carry out a time course I have to inoculate a culture the day before, then come in early on the day of the time course and let the cells synchronize with alpha factor (which is a 2- 2.5 hour wait). Then I carry out a 4 hour time course and count the samples (which takes me about 3 hours, though I am getting faster even now 🙂 ). I’ve learned to get better at planing out when I will prep for and carry out long experiments around the several meetings I have each week. It can be frustrating to push through the daily work, ESPECIALLY when there is a contamination or equipment breaks and sets you back a day, but it’s nice when you finish counting an experiment and have results to study right then. It is interesting how much we can learn about yeast just by studying their growth and budding rates. I’ve also learned the importance of having a good playlist of music to listen to when doing repetitive tasks.
This summer I’ve enjoyed talking with the people in the Haase lab and learning from them and their work. It has been nice to learn about the process of what graduate students do and see what a career in research can look like. The lab members have been very helpful in answering my questions. Over all my research is going very well!
