(Look, mom! My very own bench space!)
Most of my friends from back home thought I was pretty crazy for “sacrificing” most of my summer to work in a lab. But, really, I feel that I would be sacrificing so much more had I not decided to both apply and accept a position in the 2014 Howard Hughes Research Fellows Program. Cloning bacteria seems like a perfect exciting way to spend the summer for a novice such as myself. Everything—from pipetting to working the equipment that I’ve only heard about in textbooks—is exciting and new.
(Ah, yes. Learning to pipette.)
There is so much that this program has to offer that I’m still wrapping my head around it—and so I haven’t thought very much of my own expectations of the program. Only it’s expectations of me!
But really, when I think about it, I see this program as sort of game changer for me, or at least a clarifier. Recently, I’ve been struggling with my potential future plans in the medical field. Neither medical school or graduate school trump the other, because I don’t have enough experience to know what would better suite my interests and personality. I know that there is no way to narrow my focus until I get some more experience in both areas. In short, one of my main expectations for Howard Hughes is its probable impact on my futures decisions.
Related to that, I expect Howard Hughes to prepare me for a lab setting—this immersive experience is giving me a hands-on grasp on what it’s like to be a research and how everything that I’ve learned in school thus far is truly applied in a professional field.
I am able to talk to people that have done extraordinary research, and learn what it takes to achieve the groundbreaking discoveries that we all take for granted.
And of course, I expect to be challenged during these remaining seven weeks. . . And so far, I’m not being disappointed. I feel as though I’m going at a breakneck pace, being tossed into this confusing and thrilling world of deadlines and zebrafish and bacterial cultures and DNA sequences, and now it’s up to me whether to sink or swim.
(One of my biggest challenges might be to figure out who belongs to which bench)
Well, that’s not entirely true. My secondary mentor, Kavita, is an awesome coach. She’s got me on the paddle board. I’m still plugging my nose before going underwater. But, with her thorough guidance, I’m sure I’ll be swimming on my own in no time.
With floaties, probably, but it’s progress.
Seriously though, to think that only last week I had no idea how to pipette, let transfer DNA between plasmids, but here I am, already more experienced than I was last week.
I think I can only go up from here!
By the way, some things make so much more sense in practice than on paper.
