Weeks 9/10:
Carver College of Medicine

July 26, 2014

My last few weeks in the lab weren’t very busy at all. Well, not really, there were a few days where everybody decided to ask me to help them with something and I ended up doing like four things at the same time. But mostly what I did in these last couple of weeks was help the other researchers in the lab with whatever they needed. My project was pretty much concluded so I didn’t have anything specific to do anymore. So I basically ‘helped’ everybody and kept the lab stocked up.

I guess my last post shouldn’t be about research anymore, but about all of the amazing experiences I had in this lab. It was very hard for me to decide if I wanted to stay in Iowa this summer or not, but now I don’t even look back. It was by far the best thing for me, and I enjoyed every minute of it. In this lab I made friends, learned about science, discovered new cultures, learned random words in other languages, had fun, but above anything, learned the meaning of hard work. Now, if I only have one thing to do I get nervous; I have to do more than one thing at a time or I feel lazy. But the important thing about multitasking is being able to do ALL the things you’re expected/supposed to do well. And that’s when hard work comes into play. It took me a while to realize that I couldn’t be slow, or that lunch breaks aren’t always going to be at noon or whatever. Sometimes lunch time is at 2, or 3 , or even 4. The first three weeks I was COMPLETELY lost!! I had no idea what I was doing, I saw all of those PhD/post doc people and I felt like I would never catch up, like I would never understand anything they were working on. After a while, and a lot of reading, I started understanding a little bit more of everything we were doing. After asking my supervisor A LOT of questions, basically about everything, I started to get the purpose of my research, and also to kind of get the main idea behind other people’s projects.  I think initially I just wanted to know what I was doing so that I could write my report later on; however, after a while I wanted to learn because I knew it was important for me to be able to think ‘scientifically’, or kind of. Not only that, but I was actually very curious about the things we were doing. Also, seeing the other researchers working so hard helped make myself to want to do more and work harder. I couldn’t contribute much with a lot of the thinking and analyzing that they do, but I knew that I could help with the molecular stuff and that I knew I could be good at; if I did my best, I could do a really good job, and that’s what I tried to do.

I also learned how stressful/annoying science can be. You’re so careful with everything, trying to make everything work, and usually it doesn’t. Every little detail is important, every degree celsius, every minute. The worst part is when you work on the same thing for weeks and you realized that nothing is working, or that the mutations you tried to insert for three months don’t do anything to the cell (my case). However, it’s very rewarding when you succeed, because you feel like you beat all those obstacles, and it’s great (I actually wanted to say ‘fab’, but let’s keep this more “serious”).

Anyway, I can go on and on about my experience, but the truth is that I can’t really share everything I did this summer. In a nutshell, it was an AMAZING experience. Dr. Ahern is simply great, and everybody in the lab was supportive, helpful, fun, funny, and very very sweet. It was a really good summer, even after Brazil lost 7×1 in the World Cup.