Hey guys :)
I know this post is long overdue, but the module 2 research paper took so much of my focus that I completely forgot about blog posts until this moment. I'm sitting in the corner of an 8 year old cousin's bedroom, hunched over my laptop as I pretend the members of the Cheetah Girls aren't staring directly at me from their 24"x36" theatrical poster hanging behind me.
Module 2 is finally over. It's hard to imagine how we managed to get so much done in such a short amount of time. I could have sworn just the other day, I was sitting in the third row of 20.109 lecture on the first day of class wondering how we were going to get through such an ambitious course load in such a short amount of time. And yet, here we are. Module 2 was demanding. But it never stopped being exciting. I was in a position where I could to take control of the direction my research went it. I got to select my targets and sequences and make decisions that would produce my own unique results. Having this responsibility is something I've always imagined I'd have in graduate school. But this experience came a couple years early, lucky for me ;)
I loved the journal club presentations. It's a skill I really never get the opportunity to practice in front of people. To be able to break down an academic journal, pull out all of the skeletal, important bits of information, and present them as clearly and concisely to a panel of my peers is something I want to master. When I got up to present on that first day of JC, I blacked out. I have no idea what I said or how I got through it. I really have no memory of presenting. I had rehearsed it so exhaustively the night before that I was able to go through this routine without really paying attention to anything I was saying. And I will admit, it was super cringe-worthy watching a tape of myself present. But I got to see I was good at a lot of things I didn't know I could do. And I got to see exactly what could use some work. And for that, I'm grateful of this experience.
Now, the Mod 2 report. That report was one of the most difficult things I've ever had to write. Having to capture weeks and weeks of thoughts and concepts and execution and data in a single assignment was so much easier said than done. I knew what I wanted to say deep down. But how do I organize my thoughts on paper to get everyone else to understand exactly what my partner and I tried to accomplish? Honestly, I've never gone through more writing blocks with an assignment ever before. And one of the biggest roadblocks I had to deal with? Our experiments did not work. Not even a little bit. All our data showed our CRISPRi system made no effect. I'm pretty sure in academia, no one would dream of writing a paper where nothing happened. The bulk of my writing had to be about why it should all work conceptually and what could have gone wrong here. But having to turn nothing (data that contradicts the basis of the study) into something (a quality paper) was so difficult. It was a draining experience.
Failure is a part of this line of study. Getting knocked down is a part of this line of study. Hitting as many roadblocks as I did is a part of this line of study. And ultimately, I'm happy I got a chance to struggle through it. Things aren't going to go right, regardless of how extensively concepts have been studied and understood. And the reality is, I'm going to have to communicate failures with those around me. It's exhausting, to be quite frank. But it's the good kind of exhausting. The right kind of exhausting.
-Sami K
I know this post is long overdue, but the module 2 research paper took so much of my focus that I completely forgot about blog posts until this moment. I'm sitting in the corner of an 8 year old cousin's bedroom, hunched over my laptop as I pretend the members of the Cheetah Girls aren't staring directly at me from their 24"x36" theatrical poster hanging behind me.
Module 2 is finally over. It's hard to imagine how we managed to get so much done in such a short amount of time. I could have sworn just the other day, I was sitting in the third row of 20.109 lecture on the first day of class wondering how we were going to get through such an ambitious course load in such a short amount of time. And yet, here we are. Module 2 was demanding. But it never stopped being exciting. I was in a position where I could to take control of the direction my research went it. I got to select my targets and sequences and make decisions that would produce my own unique results. Having this responsibility is something I've always imagined I'd have in graduate school. But this experience came a couple years early, lucky for me ;)
I loved the journal club presentations. It's a skill I really never get the opportunity to practice in front of people. To be able to break down an academic journal, pull out all of the skeletal, important bits of information, and present them as clearly and concisely to a panel of my peers is something I want to master. When I got up to present on that first day of JC, I blacked out. I have no idea what I said or how I got through it. I really have no memory of presenting. I had rehearsed it so exhaustively the night before that I was able to go through this routine without really paying attention to anything I was saying. And I will admit, it was super cringe-worthy watching a tape of myself present. But I got to see I was good at a lot of things I didn't know I could do. And I got to see exactly what could use some work. And for that, I'm grateful of this experience.
Now, the Mod 2 report. That report was one of the most difficult things I've ever had to write. Having to capture weeks and weeks of thoughts and concepts and execution and data in a single assignment was so much easier said than done. I knew what I wanted to say deep down. But how do I organize my thoughts on paper to get everyone else to understand exactly what my partner and I tried to accomplish? Honestly, I've never gone through more writing blocks with an assignment ever before. And one of the biggest roadblocks I had to deal with? Our experiments did not work. Not even a little bit. All our data showed our CRISPRi system made no effect. I'm pretty sure in academia, no one would dream of writing a paper where nothing happened. The bulk of my writing had to be about why it should all work conceptually and what could have gone wrong here. But having to turn nothing (data that contradicts the basis of the study) into something (a quality paper) was so difficult. It was a draining experience.
Failure is a part of this line of study. Getting knocked down is a part of this line of study. Hitting as many roadblocks as I did is a part of this line of study. And ultimately, I'm happy I got a chance to struggle through it. Things aren't going to go right, regardless of how extensively concepts have been studied and understood. And the reality is, I'm going to have to communicate failures with those around me. It's exhausting, to be quite frank. But it's the good kind of exhausting. The right kind of exhausting.
-Sami K
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