Raise your hand if you’ve been a fish out of water.

*Mentally raises hand*

Fish out of water? More like a fish that’s been dropped in the middle of the desert.

You see, I was under the impression that 20.109 required no previous lab experience. But after finishing Mod 1, I would revise that statement to say no previous lab experience required.*

*Technically lab experience is not required, but it is preferred. Some instruction will assume exposure to lab techniques, jargon, and experiments. If you don't have proper exposure... good luck.

On the first day of lab, I was so unbelievably lost. I didn't have much of a clue what we were doing.

I think it was quite obvious that I had no idea what was going on around me because Leslie told me to meet with her to go over what I didn’t understand (which was almost everything).

Meeting with Leslie really did answer the majority of questions I had (thanks Leslie!). The thing is, sometimes I get so lost that I don’t even know what questions to ask, but I’m still trying my best regardless.

I’ll find my footing eventually.

The main project for Module 1 was the Data Summary. Man, was that project daunting. The bright side was that I got to work with my lab partner, Valentino. First of all, thanks to Valentino for answering all of my many questions. This project was difficult for me because I was essentially describing our experiment while learning what our experiment was. Valentino and I started early and we split the assignment such that we each contributed to different slides. I tried my best to make my work up to par, and hopefully everything pans out well.

At the end of the day, I'm proud of all of the work and effort I've put forth for this class. I'm not too entirely sure how I feel about 20.109, but I'm still trying my best; I'm keeping an open mind and trying to not get too consumed with confusion. For the future of this class, I should plan to ask more questions, so we'll see if I can do that.

In the meantime, I'll just keep hanging on.