First lab experience!

I’ve just about gotten through about two thirds of my 2nd term, and I have yet to experience the joyous feeling of having nothing to do. Especially the last month has felt like trying to swim out of a whirlpool, as I had to juggle not only the majority of my assessments, my karate training and BUCS, and practicing parts for my orchestra, but also finding time to apply for summer lab experience.

This year I’ve finally managed to be persistent enough to find a researcher that would be willing to offer an inexperienced youngling like me summer lab experience in NMR spectroscopy, which I will probably undergo in the 6-8 weeks before the main part of the summer holidays. My task is going to be the expression, examination, and hopefully even characterisation of a plant protein domain that hasn’t yet been identified; this might have implications in understanding how the protein functions. I have yet to apply for a grant for my stay over the time period and I imagine that the looming application deadlines have the potential to make my life quite stressful in a few weeks. Unfortunately I have to postpone applying for any stipend until I actually finish the important assessments in my courses. 

Our coursework these two terms is completely new – this is the first year in which they condensed the previously available blocks into only 4, adding unto that additional coursework to smoothen out our transition into 3rd year, which used to be quite rough. The labs now actually require students to think about what they’re doing and a few of our assessments are very engaging and even beneficial to our future careers, e.g. creating a datasheet on and finding a new industrial use for a protein of my choice or giving a presentation to two very knowledgeable lecturers on a huge topic in just 10 minutes. After all this I greatly look forward to my summer project and to the following years on this university!

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