What was your first week in lab like? who did you meet? What did you do?So, it’s already been a week since I started working in the lab with my mentor developing proteins. Over the course of the week, I met [others], who are scientists working in the same lab area as me. While working in the lab, I was surprised at how much individual work I did. A lot of the time, my mentor first showed me how to do something or gave me instructions and then let me finish the rest by myself. I was also surprised at how long some steps of the procedure took. The experiments in an actual lab aren't like the experiments I did at school. In school, I could finish the whole experiment in one or two hours. In the lab, it took around two hours to elute our protein solution and around four hours to filter the solution with a centrifuge. But at the same time, the overall process seemed to go pretty fast. In four days, we went from obtaining the protein from bacteria and purifying the protein to almost experimenting on the protein. I guess that’s what happens when you spend a lot of time at the lab each day. Overall, I expect to learn a lot more about protein development, especially since I started at around the middle of the entire process. And I’m looking forward to doing the purification process by myself, where I can put everything I would've learned from my mentor together and purify the protein without needing someone to walk me through. This week, I got to experience the lab and I got to enjoy my time there under the care of my mentor. I was pretty nervous on my first day. It started off with a meeting in which fellow lab members presented. Then I got to see my mentor slice 50 micrometers of tissue. I also got to do the stainings by myself. I was able to mount the tissue on to glass slides. It's pretty cool. I enjoy being in the lab. My first week in the lab was very interesting and pleasant. I believe that I owe the great experience to my mentor because she has been nothing but a great guidance for me. Walking into such a large amount of responsibility, I assumed that she would have guided me every step of the way, almost like a babysitter but I was completely proven wrong. She invested a large amount of trust in my ability and memory to complete every task she had given to me. The trust she inputted into me, motivated me to not let her down. I worked harder and harder every day so there could not be any room for failure. I have never felt so independent in such an important position then she has helped me to feel. I believed that for a certain portion of the time that I was no longer the intern but an independent scientist. My first week is completely a week I could never forget and will only remember as the peak of my independence. My first week in the lab was super fun! I’ve learned so much in the past week. I learned about genotyping, PCR, and gel electrophoresis. At first it was a bit terrifying with a lot of information being thrown at me, but my mentor supported through every step of the way. She was really patient with me & had faith that I could do it. It’s really reassuring when my mentor says it’s okay to make mistakes because I already made a whole bunch of mistakes. My first week was something I wasn't expecting. On my first day, I spent the whole day setting up programs that I would need on the computer. I also spent some time talking to IT on the phone to help me. My mentor introduced me to so many people that I can't remember their names. I met someone who is going to be a senior at UC Berkeley and majoring in Psychology and wants to master in Public Health. We are supposedly working on the same project which is pretty cool so I have a lunch buddy. I haven't had the chance to shadow anyone when they are meeting with patients but I know that that is coming up. I spent the last two days finding Date of Diagnosis for patients that don't have them. It's been very boring with a lot of reading but it has helped me get a better picture of the kind of patients there are and possible ideas for my hypothesis. I'm excited to start putting the information I read with some faces and get an even better picture. I thought overall the lab was really interesting but what surprised me was how different the lab environment was compared to how I imagined it would be. During the brief time I have been there, I met not only my mentor but other researchers and lab technicians. Lastly, I feel really excited about what I'm doing and how much I would learn. I have been working in my lab for a week. The first days were exhausting and intimidating. I thought I was not going to learn all the procedures. I thought about quitting. However, through this experience I learned how to be persistent and work hard and not easily give up when things get hard. I am working with my mentor and one of my fellow interns. I feel excited about what´s coming up, I know its going to require dedication and determination, but working with my group makes it less complicated. My first week in the lab has been an amazing experience. Amazing in a sense that I'm actually working with DNA and other microscopic biological molecules in the supervision of my mentor. Sometimes it just blows my mind how advanced the technologies have become in the field of science. Along with the great technologies, I have a great mentor who guides me through every single step and helps me understand the hardest concepts of our project in the best possible way. I'm thankful to the Science & Health education partnership at UCSF for giving me this great opportunity of learning! My first week in the lab has been very interesting and was an experience in which I gained a lot. The first two days were a lot of learning and getting used to the equipment that I would be using through the summer. After the first two days, the person who was teaching me went on vacation and I was all by myself, which for some people would be a nightmare, but for me, I enjoyed it. I was able to come in, do my work, and leave. Having that freedom is probably what i enjoyed most about this week. I'm looking forward to a whole summer of doing this. My first week really got me comfortable with working with the mentors I was assigned to and their fellow scientists! I feel like I've made some new friends, and they are all enjoyable to talk to. The first day didn't feel too different from school; I didn't mind it too much though. I had to watch several videos about stem cells and the Western Blotting process and take notes. It wasn't too bad since I don't mind writing and making notes, but I had to have a conversation with my mentors about it later. That was the nerve-wracking part, since explaining things is not my forte. However, it wasn't as bad as I initially thought it would be. I ended up especially having some fun explaining the process of transcription and translation, since I knew a bit about it from 10th grade biology, and even surprised my mentors a bit about it because some facts weren't included in the video. Then on the last few days of my first week, I've learned more about Western Blots and even got to do it myself a few times! It's really fun to use micropipettes and eject DNA into gels, though since I'm new to it, it is a bit stressful. I hope I get to do it more so I can get better at it. I even got invited to a presentation about the effect of taking away vitamin C during the birthing process. I didn't understand a lot of it, but it allowed me to feel comfortable with the scientists at my lab. All in all, I am really enjoying my experience inside a lab and preforming experiments! My first week in lab has been great! I got to help pipette serum into 80+ tubes, all by myself! I thought I did the pipetting just for practice but it turns out that the tubes of the serum are actually going to be used by everyone in the lab. I found that so exciting to know something I did was contributing to such wonderful research. That was also my first time working in the hood and it was definitely something new for me. I feel like I've learned so much and this is only the beginning. I believe this will be a very insightful summer and I'm looking forward to it! This week working in the lab has been very exhilarating. It was interesting seeing pieces of brain under a microscope and looking at the different layers of the cortex. Also I have enjoyed learning more about how the dying process works and how different dyes can be used to show different kinds of proteins in the brain. I have also learned that messing up something small can be very critical, because you have to remember what it is that you have done. I am feeling very excited about the rest of this summer to see what more I can learn and find out. My first week in the lab went great! I learned all kinds of cool things, my favorite thing that I did so far was extracting DNA. I really liked to extract the DNA because it was something I haven't done before and I thought it was really cool. I met this other intern who is also working at the lab and she was really cool, she helped me out with some of my experiments and it was really fun working with her. My feelings for what's coming up this summer is that this will be awesome and I can't wait to see what's next! During my first week in the lab, I was very confused. Although my mentor showed me how to do things like how to stain samples, I only got more confused over time until I asked more and more questions. I asked many questions to multiple scientists for both help and my own curiosity. I learned of all the practical applications of research, how symposiums work, and how research meetings work. Overall, this was a new experience that I wish to experience more over the course of these two months. I like to be in the lab, but I'm sad I can only attend the lab for 2 days a week. I did lots of research online and I was able to see some real science. I am going to see a surgery processing in about 2 weeks, which is so exciting for me. In my first week in the lab I was surprised of the amount of work I had to catch up on. Articles on top of articles were given to me, but I remained optimistic for I knew I could handle all the readings I have to do. In the course of my first day, my mentor and I discussed about our upcoming presentation about heritability, which made me so confused because the topic was very complicated. However, my mentor assured me that she will further explain the topic to me in the following week as I start my real lab topic. My first week in my lab was a blast. I got to know all my mentors' coworkers, they seem really chill and funny. They're not too old of people, 20s-30's. My feelings for this upcoming summer is just the excitement, happiness and knowledge I will gain from this program.
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High School Intern Program participants present their summer experiences as they conduct authentic scientific research in UCSF labs. Archives
September 2018
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