Personal Blog #7

The semester comes to a close and so does the class. This semester was ultimately fairly trying for me, not due to the class, but due to outside factors. Due to those factors, I missed several things and had to make up others. Doing outside work was also a hassle. My isolates for course produced little to no results, with what results they did have not being reproduced. On top of all this, the group project idea turned out to be a flop and there was no enough time or resources to figure out exactly why. Murphy's law had a heavy hand on my semester it would seem.

Despite all those trials and tribulations, I enjoyed my time in the course. While the writing intensive aspects were hit or miss, I did greatly enjoy getting to practice doing labwork. As I said in a previous blog, I find lab work relaxing on top of the good feeling of actually doing something. I dont know what it is but doing assays, growing plates, and analyzing the results makes me feel like something appoximating a real scientist and not just a tourist or an imposter as I often feel. My lack of results dont help in that regard, but failure is part of research. Unfortunately due to the academic enviornment, I cant adjust things to try and get different results but it was still informative none the less.

Ultimately I learned a decent amount, and got to practice more of what I already knew. I am also thankful for the flexibility I was shown being able to come in and make up missing work, as without that I would not have been able to do a lot of the work in the course due to aformentioned outside factors. The time alone in the lab making up the work was also very relaxing in a strange kind of way. Something about a quiet lab and a repetative task to calm the mind. I had a good time I think, despite everything else.