Because I interned in the plant research lab last summer, it was great to come back and see familiar faces. It's been almost exactly a year since, so I'm surprised I still remember my way around the UCSD campus. Not only that, but some of the things I worked on last year, are still being researched by my mentor today! Keini, my mentor, is super sweet and I'm glad she welcomed me back. I remember being so intimidated by the lab environment with all of the postdocs, undergrads, and principle investigators. Now, I'm happy to be back and helping. The people here are friendly and I like how it's very diverse. There are researchers from all over the world! I'm most excited about applying the skills from my externship to college. My plan for the fall is to major in Biology, so I hope to take great advantage of the knowledge I'm receiving in the lab. The work that I'm doing is contributing to a bigger research topic on arabidopsis and maize crops. From what I understand, my mentors job is to test different studies on these plants and figure out what makes it resistant. I help her by collecting seeds, sterilizing them, making plant-friendly liquid media, pouring those into platelets, etc.
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For the month of May, I will be going back and forth between two internships. Here's the layout of my week: on Mondays and Fridays, I will be interning as a teacher's assistant/escape room "expert" at Explorer Elementary. I was fortunate enough to be given a second internship in such short time and I'm glad I'll be able to give back to the school, as I am an Explorer alum. :) On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I will be at UCSD in one of their plant research labs. The reason for having two internships is because my mentor at UCSD could only schedule me in for 3 days a week, which left me with 12 more hours to complete for a total of 30 hours a week. I'm glad I've got my priorities set so far and I'm excited to be back in the lab, as well as working with children. Both my mentors are very friendly and willing to help, as I hope to gain a lot from the two internships!
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Externship BlogWelcome to my Externship Blog! My blogs are updated every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, for the month of May 2017. Enjoy :) |