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For my practicum-I have been doing undergraduate research in the Jay Lab in the Bioengineering department. I spend at least 10 hours a week there doing undergraduate research under a graduate student, Nick. The project we are working on is research on the therapeutic effect of bacteria extracellular vesicles(BEVs) on neurodegenerative diseases. Currently, we have been working to isolate the BEVs produced under different growth conditions, and determine the extent of GFP loading into these BEVs. Typically, I come to the lab and talk with Nick, who gives background information on what we will be doing in the lab and why. He explains the procedures and shows me new lab techniques, which I then do under his supervision, and ask any questions I may have. These include techniques like Western Blots, Anion Exchange Chromatography, Restriction digest cloning, Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis, and more. After completing a procedure, Nick will discuss the results and the next steps with me.
To find my practicum-I looked at many research labs across UMD. I tried to use the research database, but was unable to find anything I wanted to do there, as many professors do not post on there, but have openings. I went to the different websites of labs I would be interested in working, by going to the Bioengineering, Biochemistry, and Biology department webpages, and clicking on the faculty and research sections of those pages. Those pages usually have links to the personal websites of faculty, which will list the projects the faculty work on. I went on and looked at each website, and if something interested me, I added it to my list of potential labs. Once I made my list, I narrowed it down to my top 3, and I emailed those professors. In the email, I attached a cover letter and a resume. Professors will often list on their website if they need may additional information in an application email. I waited for a reply, and 2/3 responded, to which I then interviewed for and joined the lab.
I have been learning a lot in my practicum-I have been learning many new lab techniques in wet lab, and many research skills in general while talking with the grad student I work under. This varies from understanding how to use data collected from the lab in furthering the project, or even how to list it in publications. Understanding how different techniques work in lab is important in helping to identify what to do next to reach a specific goal, and whether a different approach should be taken or not.
In this practicum, I have grown as a person and student-I am not sure what I want to do with my major and later on, so this experience is giving me the ability to try something that I may be interested in and figure out if I like the work or not. So far, I am not sure what I want to do, but I have learned I do not mind the work I am doing in my practicum. I have also grown as a student when it comes to time management, as being in lab and taking 19 credits as been a lot of work. I have much less time to study this semester than last semester since I am in lab so often, and that was a bit difficult to figure out at first, but with the semester, I learned how to manage my time better, as well as how to communicate better with the student I work under, if I have a lot of work and a lot on my head, to reschedule time I am in lab.
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I can apply my practicum experience to life and my career- since I am unsure about what want to do, but I think I am going towards doing something in Biology, possibly research related, so this experience gives me a lot of insight into how the field works. I gained a lot of insight into not only into how to go about doing procedures and the correct techniques to do so, which itself is very helpful in the field of research, but also I have an idea of the research process. There is a lot of planning when it comes to research, from reading many publications on the topic research and relating them to your own research to figure out how to go about it, to even waiting for the materials to come in and waiting for the data from the samples to be read to then be able to analyze. There are many longer term things that have to be considered and this practicum helps me better understand how this all works if I ever want to go into this career.
My plans for the rest of my time at UMD consist of- continuing doing undergraduate research in this lab in the next semesters, as well as in the summer. I need to figure out what I am going to major in but the classes. I have taken have been leading to continuing to do Bio-related fields. This is also true for post graduation plans for now, which likely may lead up to going into grad school or medicine.
Resume
Here is an image from me in lab. I am holding a pipette and a tube full of BEVs I isolated through Size column chromatography. When I took this picture, I took it out of boredom because the thing I was doing was filtering 6 tubes of these BEVs, and to do that, I add to keep adding solution to the filter, which took around 2.5 hours, since the machine that usually does this, broke. That was all I was doing for the time period, so while waiting to add more solution, I took pictures with my laptop's photo booth for fun. This showed that there are some long, time consuming points in lab where things may get boring. Even through those moments, the results at the end are what matters and even those moments may be worth it when you are able to collect the data and see the results of your work. There are more interesting moments in lab as well, but sometimes to get to them, you need to get through the boring parts first.