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...