BE 20.109(F19) Class blog

Someone lied to me and told me the Mod 2 research article was going to be easier. Let me start with this - it was not. Beginning with word vomit on the page wasn't really any easier than waiting until I knew what I wanted to write before putting anything down. Somehow, by writing it in my research article draft, I convinced myself that it was important information that must be included at any cost - my sanity, the length requirements, the coherence of my article and presentation of my data: none of it mattered as long as I could keep the revelation that graphing the curve with different axes would be easier. Novel stuff, I know. In addition to this, I no longer had my trusty sidekick, Christy, to tell me when I was going off on an irrelevant tangent. As a result, I texted her a lot, annoying her, and also spent a lot of time on unnecessary results of the experiment. I also came to realize, on the eve of the due date, that I am perhaps the only person to get into MIT without a...

Going into the research article I was scared.   The data summary took so much time and that assignment was in bullet points and with your partner.   This time I was all on my own and had to write a complete manuscript. It was slightly overwhelming.   But it was helpful knowing that my methods were mostly complete. Finishing them for a homework assignment, gave me some comfort.   The first steps were to analyze the data. This data was definitely more straight forward than the data summary and included less daunting spreadsheets. I also think my excel skills are rapidly improving as I made many graphs and calculations.   I tried to follow the suggestions the communication lab gave about the order to write a research paper.   I spent my first few days just crunching numbers and making graphs and then recalculating numbers and making more graphs.   I also had to do some significance calculations and again edit and make more graphs.   After I final...

Just finished the Mod 2 Research Article! It was a really long assignment that took a while to complete, but I think I really started appreciating the homework we did along the way when I realized that we had basically already written the Introduction and Methods sections. I then started putting together the figures, and tried to split up the writing into small tasks (ie Results section for sequencing figure) to make it more manageable. Additionally, the teaching staff were very helpful and responsive to all my questions. After putting together a draft, I then read through it once myself and made edits to it, and scheduled an appointment with the CommLab for Monday morning. The grad student I met with this time was extremely helpful; he was able to pinpoint very clearly areas of my article that needed clarification, or were too wordy and needed to be cut down. Following his feedback, I revised my article again, and gave it a few more read throughs before submitting. I definitely think...

They really be out here. Again Dear Diary, It's that point in the semester where I'm just tired, so this post will be bland, lifeless, and uninspired, like my research article. *ba dum tss* Was this easier than the data summary? Yep. Had it opened the past 72 hours. Referring back to it and seeing what past me was thinking. This research article really came at a horrible time. I appreciate that these assignments are due after a long break, but a) all the professors think this way so the week after it's an American Ninja Warrior obstacle and I'm the guy that falls in the first 5 seconds, and b) I get so sucked up in the assignment that while everyone else is leaving campus (to Disneyland, New York, etc.) I am suffering  finishing this assignment. The only upside is that this trauma  experience brings people together and I really hope there's a movie night amongst the 109ers. Resources I utilized: BE Comm lab (bless those grad students who work on holidays), le 10...

Turned in my research article right before 10 pm yesterday and immediately felt relieved. That was enormously rewarding but also enormously tiring. I am proud of what I've learned in this module! I feel like I've gotten a better grasp of the field of genetic/metabolic engineering and am excited to learn about the new developments in CRISPR such as "Prime Editing", discussed in Journal Club. It's pretty crazy that a technique could be considered so transformative that it convinced Nature to publish a preprint before peer review or any other regulations could delay it. Seriously, has any other paper had this statement printed at the top of it: This is an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. Nature Research are providing this early version of the manuscript as a service to our customers. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting and a proof review before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production proc...

I lived and breathed the research article this week. Office hours became my second home and I have fallen (physically) not one, not two, but three times at office hours. I have also fallen when working on my research article in the stud. Something about research articles that make me fall... Saturday, Nov 2nd: I wrote down one sentence. I called that a very production day. Sunday, Nov 3rd: I stared at my computer screen, not knowing what to do. Monday, Nov 4th: I stared at my computer screen, not knowing what to do. Tuesday, Nov 5th:  I stared at my computer screen, not knowing what to do. Wednesday, Nov 6th: Office hours saved me. Thursday, Nov 7th: Office hours saved me. Friday, Nov 8th: Office hours saved me. Saturday, Nov 9th: Office hours saved me. I embarrassingly fall twice at Noreen's Office hours. While working on the research article with a friend, I lean too far over my chair and somehow end up on the ground, Sunday, Nov 10th: Office hours saved me. I miss my c...

Yes this is the first journal-like manuscript that  I  have ever prepared and the teaching team helped A LOT with its creation. What I found most helpful was office hours and talking to Becky about my plan of what I wanted my story to be. Indeed we went through many many possible conclusions I could make with the data that was given but eventually determined that they were all not very viable. Therefore I did a quick 360 and changed my target from ethanol to acetate without having much info on how I should frame my  introduction which complicated things a bit.  It was also extremely difficult to complete this assignment on time. I had my methods completed but only received my data on Wednesday. After Wednesday I tried to do as much as I could by analyzing the data and looking at some graphs by the end of the week. After Friday I had a direction for my data but wasn't yet totally sure about it. Satu...

I think the Mod2 research article is the longest English document I have written. I have never liked scientific writing in general mainly because there are too many rules and guidelines, let alone having to write a really long one. So obviously it felt like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders when I finished this assignment. But looking back, I was surprised that I actually enjoyed this process. I think what really motivated me was the figure-making process. I enjoyed making experimental approach schematics and data figures. I used BioRender and it’s so convenient to use. All I needed to do was type in what graphics or images I wanted and just dragged them on to the screen. Once I had all my figures ready, I was less stressed out to start writing. Figure 1. Previous figure from Mod1 Data Summary.  The second resource that I found very helpful was the homework assignments. Most of the time the hardest part of writing for me is to start. And thankfully because o...

Sunday, 1:45pm... I just submitted my research article and figures.  Once again, I wanted to finish early so that I could get started on 7.06 studying for Wednesday.  Unlike last time, I didn't get to use this long weekend for exciting travels, but at least Thanksgiving is coming up. For me, the strangest part of this assignment was that I effortlessly reached the page maximum.  I definitely poured many hours into this assignment, but I never felt that usual feeling of trying to think of things to write to fill the pages.  Rather, I had so much I wanted to say.  I could have kept going and filled many more pages. This was very unusual for me.  When I was younger, I used to love reading and writing. But when senior year of high school came around, I really became sick of it.  Writing my senior paper on a topic I was not interested in, typing endless responses to supplemental college essays, and struggling to fill pages with words about boring books ...

Note: Meme shortage due to lack of trauma and sleep deprivation for this assignment. Restock will be available on November 11th.  Who would've thought that in a communications intensive class we'd have to present to the whole class? What a concept!  Dear Diary: It has been surveyed that "75% of the population struggles with a fear of public speaking to a certain degree." I don't know who the other 12.5 people in this class are that have a fear of public speaking cause they all went up there like champs. Its 4 PM on a Friday in Leslie's room. I pull up with my article unread, and my PowerPoint non-existent. By the time I kick myself out, I had finished reading the introduction and made the title slide. I tried to continue working on it, but then Cena a las Seis happened, so obviously, I had to cop some free food and call it a night. Luckily for me, past me had scheduled a Comm Lab appointment for Monday so I had a deadline to meet to have this p...

I had experienced numerous journal clubs and presented my own work in lab meetings in my urops before and so I thought I would feel more prepared for the 109 journal club. Between an unrelenting onslaught of assignments and the beginning of all morning practices for crew, I didn't get to prepare much of my presentation until somewhat last minute. I created slides to cover every experiment, result, and conclusion in the paper - certain that it would be over the 10 minute target, but uncomfortable with having to cut material. What was the most important? It didn't help that the article was not originally in English and the translation was not perfect. There were some sentences that seemed to directly contradict each other and one plot in particular that indicated significance where the text claimed there was none! After re-reading the article a number of times I ultimately narrowed down to the core claims and so was able to whittle down the presentation to just the essentials, bu...

Two days before journal club I realized I had absolutely no clue what was going on in my paper. I understood the overall purpose and the hypothesis that the researchers had set, but could not decipher how they inevitably came to their final conclusions. I blamed myself immediately. I obviously was incapable of reading a scientific paper. That day, as I grew more and more frustrated and reread the paper over and over again, a friend shared a tweet with me that made me feel significantly better. The tweet discussed that we shouldn't necessarily blame ourselves when not understanding academic papers, because many times the author is to blame for poorly communicating their ideas. After setting up a meeting with Leslie and doing a lot of external research on plant genetics, I finally had somewhat of an idea of what my paper was proposing. Eventually I just started working on the powerpoint and hoping things would connect as I made slides. Surprisingly they did. I was able to figure o...

There I was on the day to give my journal club presentation; I had worked all weekend on my slides and practicing my presentation alone in my room.  I even ran through it one more time outside right before 1pm.  I was feeling as prepared as I could have been, but there were always some thoughts of doubt. What if they don’t understand my paper?  What if I go too long or too short?  What if I just misunderstood everything in my paper? What if they ask questions that I can’t answer?  These questions did not settle the nervous energy but there was a part of me that was excited to share my paper and I wanted to share my excitement about the paper to the class.  I was starting to channel my nerves into an eagerness to present. Luckily, I was able to present first, and as I stood up in front of the class for an extended period waiting for everyone to settle in, I was starting to become nervous again.   Then Courtney asked me to say a joke, and then I...