Through 20.109, I have learned the importance of understanding everything you use during an experiment. Lab quizzes and materials and methods write-ups have helped me focus on what each reagent is doing and how it contributes overall to the experiment. While it isn’t too hard to follow the steps in a protocol, understanding the steps behind the experiment helps me actually know what is going and why we are doing everything.
Mistakes will be made.
As much as we want to believe that we are fool proof, we sometimes incorrectly follow the protocol. While it can be a hassle to fix these errors, it is better to be honest about what we did wrong and fix our mistakes earlier rather than later.
Experiments do not always work.
As much as we study rigorously proven biological and chemical processes in our classes, sometimes we don’t get the results that we expect. While we expected a band to appear indicating our purified FKBP12 product, our SDS-PAGE left us with nothing but sadness. Trying to figure out what went wrong is both a novel and frustrating process, as it is important to determine the flaws in the experiment but can be difficult to critique these well-defined regulations.
Despite the fact that I am a very slow pipetter and always slow our group down by being overly thorough, getting to work with one of my close friends has been a lot more exciting than previous lab work. While the majority of normal lab time is spent on one’s own (as I experienced over the summer at USC), getting to work with friends is a lot of fun and also very helpful in understanding what is going on and why certain experiment didn’t succeed.
Developing research papers is time-consuming.
Creating the entire data summary was a lot of work but satisfying in the end. As much as we wanted our rough draft to be a perfect presentation of our results, 20.109 is a learning experience that shows what we needed to work on. I really enjoyed making the schematics for each experimental subsection and finding the images needed to map out the vital steps in the process. However, creating the overall distribution of the data was challenging, requiring me to enlist some friends to help my lacking excel skills (especially for someone getting a finance minor). Overall, I was proud of our final product and the effort we put in and now comprehend the difficulties of writing a research paper.
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