Halfway through my undergraduate years

In terms of courses, I had better opportunities to specialise into the fields that I am interested in than in the first year. In the first semester I studied mainly topics of biochemistry, cell biology and neurosciences. During the second semester I focused on further biomedical science themes, microbiology and genetics. In the end of second year I stood in front of an important decision. So far I completed the two years as a student of general Biological Sciences and only had to choose my courses. Now, I had to decide for my specialisation, so called Honours Programme, that I will study for another two years. This was an uneasy decision because The University of Edinburgh offers plenty of options and many were attractive for me. Originally, I was mainly considering Medical Biology as my future Honours programme. University experiences, however, changed my mind. The Medical Biology specialisation at The University of Edinburgh is very broad and unfortunately does not encourage students in the lab work. Even though I still find medical biology very interesting I decided to pursue some more practically and lab focused programme. After considering fields as neurosciences, reproductive biology, biochemistry and others I finally decided for Honours Programme called Molecular Genetics. This decision will allow me to study very specialized genetics themes as well as more general topics from, for example, molecular and cellular biology. Therefore, I should still have quite many options open when I finish my bachelor’s degree. Moreover, I believe that genetic engineering, analysis and other genetic research tools might have significantly more important role in medical care in future.

Another important part of my second year was an internship in the lab of Dr. Justin Goodrich. I was trying to find practical experiences in the field of Molecular Genetics before I make my final choice of specialisation and I have to say that it was successful. I was working with plant samples and that was often cheaper, easier and therefore more relaxing than manipulating animal or even human samples. At the same time I had the opportunity to try many techniques that I knew before just in theory or that were completely new for me. First half of the internship, my job was mainly helping with various projects of doctors and PhD students in the lab. I was performing separate experiments that were needed at a time and I got to know habits and equipment on the work place better. In the second half of my internship one of my classmates and I were working on a small project under supervision of Dr Goodrich. Our task was producing an artificial microRNA and using it for silencing specific plant developmental genes. The internship enabled me to try out many procedures, to learn really a lot and at last but not least thanks to amazing colleges this experience could not be more enjoyable. As a consequence, working in the lab of genetics and epigenetics of plant development even strengthen my decision to specialise into Molecular Genetics.

Finally, probably the biggest change I decided for during my second year will mainly take place next year. It is an international exchange. After long application process I was nominated by my home institution, The University of Edinburgh, and then accepted by my chosen exchange institution, the University of Adelaide. I still do not really believe it is going to happen but it seems I will spend my third undergraduate year studying in the South Australia! I hope that it will be academically as well as personally enriching experience. You can trust me that I am myself more than interested what I will write about in my next blog!