Practical skills in Biomedical Sciences

Nope. Labs are once a fortnight at best and normally far more theoretical than practical. Instead, we are told to glean lab skills in our final project during the third term. Sure, that is how we’re meant to spend the 2 months, but most people forget about the narrow focus of the project and no supervisor will teach you anything beyond your remit. Unbeknownst to the them, many a poor soul will spend their Trinity poring over excel spreadsheets filled with mysterious data from… well, something. Josh is analysing the interaural time and level differences in mice. Why? He’s not entirely sure, he hasn’t seen a lab mouse yet. Aside from this venture, he has no other lab skills, despite graduating this June; afterwards, a period of uncertainty.

This is, weirdly enough, the case with many STEM undergrads since the bureaucracy won’t allow them to participate on research. Frustration from absurdly low acceptance rate to the prestigious (read: funded) summer internships is ubiquitous.

“I held a lab rat, in my hands,” I say.

“Bollocks.” Or that’s what most people say anyway, that I’m pulling their leg and ‘what exactly is this Academy of Science in Czechoslovakia?’. And that ‘no way that’s a serious institution’ if we allow undergrads into the lab with no supervision. Preposterous. I won’t dare mention Open Science to them, their feeble heart, already shaken by Brexit, might not fend off the horror from high-schoolers in real laboratories. Alas, that is what we do in our country, and one would be surprised how much a motivated undergrad can achieve, given the space and guidance.