From lab work back to being a student

It might seem that moving from a 13 million agglomeration, a cultural and social megapolis, and from one of the most significant research institutions in the world to a tiny (but pittoresque) 15 thousand people town on the western coast of Wales will be shock, but in reality, at least for me, it went extremely smoothly.

The usual carousel of lectures, seminars, essays and lab reports can hardly derail me at this point. After all, being a student is sort of my profession now so all the coursework virtually does itself. A challenging part of this year is all the applications for graduate schools for next year. In order to apply to US for Master's or PhD one must complete several tests including the infamous GRE, and that an entire year before the start of the programme.

Another big theme of the last year is the bachelor's thesis that every student has to complete. Because Aberystwyth university doesn't have virtually any neuroimaging devices I was faced with two options - either tackle a research question which can be answered using behavioral measures or attempt to find an institution where they would let me use their EEG or MRI system. I was lucky to arrange a collaboration with a professor from the University of Bangor, where I can now collect EEG data for my project. In my bachelor's thesis I hope to use all the skills that I learnt during my year at Caltech, so overall it seems like my last year is going pretty well.

Apart from studies and work one can hardly miss the beauty of the nature in Wales. In my first two years I didn't have very much time to discover the local treasures, however, this year I go biking or hiking at least once a week. This activity replaced my archery trainings as unfortunately archery here in Aber isn't organized very well and so it is more of a time burden than proper sport activity.