I'm an engineer now?

I can’t believe the semester is nearly over and 20.109 is coming to a close. It’s truly been a journey filled with many sleepless nights and long hours at the bench, but also a lot of cool new exposure to course 20! The research proposal was a little stressful, but definitely much less so than the other major assignments in this class. I think after already doing 2 presentations for 109, I felt a lot more comfortable approaching this one. Plus, I didn’t have to do it alone (shoutout to the WF red team!!). I actually really enjoyed reading papers and preparing for the proposal- it was cool to see how our project evolved from a random idea to something that we could actually try out at the bench.

A few final thoughts to wrap up:

• It’s super cool that I can now say I’ve written a “paper,” done a journal club and a proposal presentation, and actually have a physical battery to show for all the blood, sweat, and tears that went into this class. I’m thinking about a cool battery holder design and am open to suggestions!
• Also I brought home my battery and tried to show it to my roommate (who is 6-3) and she was so freaked out by the fact that it was made out of viruses, which I found incredibly funny.
• The Comm Lab is actually such a great resource and I’m glad that this class has made me more comfortable reaching out to them for help- I will definitely be using them more in the future.
• Speaking of batteries, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more hopeless than the day we had to roll our batteries out. Madison, Sam, and I had such a hard time getting our cathode to be the right size, but we did get it eventually. Not to mention I spilled and entire box of small metal pebbles on the ground toward the end of that lab??
• Trying to use the Argon gas chamber was cool- but so much more difficult than I expected after watching Dr. Qi use it to make the battery.
• This class has exposed me to so much cool research that happens at MIT that I didn’t know about. Professor Koehler, Professor Samson, and Professor Belcher have all done incredible work in course 20 and I think one of my favorite parts of the class was being able to dive deeper into such a range of different things that happen in bioengineering.
• I’m so thankful for all the 20.109 staff that was there for us every step of the way: from scheduling extra office hours, to re-spinning my Eppendorf tube when I disturbed the pellet three times in one lab, to answering any and all questions that our group had, I definitely would not have learned nearly as much without Leslie, Maxine, Rob, or Noreen.
• Lastly, I want to shout out to my team, Madison and Sam, who made this class an overall enjoyable experience for me. It was so much fun to work with them, despite countless mess ups and confusing moments. We make a great team and we were able to pull through all the challenges of 20.109 (eventually). Here's a video of us after a successful day of TEM imaging