Eating food vs. Dual-reporter surrogate systems for efficient enrichment of genetically modified cells

                                                     

So, I think for me this journal club was not superrrr new as a concept, but it was definitely not something I was used to as far as the set up. My lab normally has journal club once ever other week, we order wings, get a few drinks (non-alcoholic of course), and read a paper about about whatever is interesting in science at the time. This can range from things related to our research to the evolution of human chewing tested by having people chew food and spit it out (riveting read). Regardless, I have been very used to journal club being very low stress. Casually read a paper about something and talking about it, no powerpoints or question sessions, just hot wings and humans chewing food. So, as you might be able to tell our journal club was not exactly what I was used to.
                                                                
Nevertheless, I feel like I learned a lot. I have been to a good number of talks with my graduate student, and I don't think I ever really thought about how much work into making a presentation. Making slides, understanding methods, being prepared to answer questions, etc. were all things that I knew happened, but I never really thought about how much time went into it. I think overall the hardest thing for me was hitting that time limit. I was always a few seconds outside, but either over or under, and that changed a lot from me just rehearsing by myself to presenting in front of the class or practicing with friends watching me. I always seemed to speed up a lot in front of people I guess due to anxiety. It was also pretty hard to prepare for questions, since a majority of my friends are not in biology they did not really have interesting questions to ask so I just kind of tried to learn everything to the best of my ability in hopes that that would cover any question people might have.

                                                              
I think one thing I really learned about was adding supplementary slides. I had never even thought about adding them to a presentation before. I normally only check them out if I am super curious about them, but I never thought about them relevant enough to add to a presentation. It turned out having them in my presentation was a gigantic plus and I don't think my presentation would have gone as well without them.
                           
                                                               
Not really, in all I think I had a pretty good time. I definitely think I stressed a little bit too much thinking about how exact my presentation had to be every time, but over all I think I learned a lot from this presentation, and honestly I had a good time.