BE 20.109(S19) Class blog

This past semester of 20.109 has constantly put me outside of my comfort zone (from struggling through the research article to stressful class presentations not to mention coding in R). And, I’m realizing now just how thankful I am for that. Coming out of this class, I’ve learned so many useful skills like both presenting and making figures, thinking about how to ask and answer scientific questions, and of course, all of the lab skills it took to culture cells and roll out a cathode (I still can’t believe I actually did that).    And despite all of times I felt like I didn't know what I was doing, the fact that each module was centered around a specific experimental question really helped because there never was a right or wrong answer. It was reassuring to know that any data was still informative data and in general I really liked the aspect of the class that was very much open ended. I think that being able to interpret my own data (ie DS and RA) as well as interpreting data fro

Wow. 109 is over. The moment 12 minutes were up on the timer (well, 12:20, but close enough) I let out a big breath I didn't realize I'd been holding all semester. 109 really was all over (well, apart from the mini-report but, again, close enough). Words can't possibly describe the experience I've had this semester. @Future 109-ers if you were scared off by the Mod 2 report and contemplated quitting science for good, I promise Mod 3 is a game changer. We walked into Prof Belcher's lecture one day, eyes drooping and brains broken post 14-page report, to play with lemons, oranges, and apples to make batteries (and also get to eat some breakfast!). We finished the module by proposing to build a viral detection system using a shrink gun (im not kidding). It was such a cool experience to play around with ground breaking research and come up with a proposal that sounded pretty?? fancy?? sciencey?? Also, for a moment there, I kinda forgot this wasn't a real pitch

This class is coming to an end, and although I'm excited for the summer, I also feel a little sad. 20.109 was a lot of fun. Coming into lab every week and running actual experiments was such a nice change from traditional lectures. I feel like I know so much more about research, working in a team, and the field of biological engineering in general. And science writing of course. Science speaking too. The research proposal was definitely a lot more fun than the journal club presentation. I've noticed that the more I do public speaking, the better I get at it. But the anxiety never goes away. Especially the 10 minutes up to the presentation when my heart starts pounding so hard I can barely hear anything else. Surprisingly, it ebbs away the second I start speaking. When I can get into the material and focus on delivering the message to the audience. The research proposal was definitely a lot easier than journal club. I felt like I knew what I was talking about a lot better

Not going to lie, this semester has been pretty rough as I'm just counting down the days until this summer. It's almost like a case of early onset senioritis, thankfully I only have a year left before freedom. That said, this was a pretty fun class to be a part of. There were a few assignments I did late, and I'm sure there are some I completely forgot about all together, but the modules as a whole were always interesting, especially the third one. At the start of the semester I thought that the writing assignments weren't going to be that bad and a lot of trouble was going to come of the speaking assignments. Surprisingly enough, it turned out be the opposite as I enjoyed the speaking ones far more than the writing, even if i wasn't always the most prepared. Overall I think we were able to do some pretty cool things in this class. Using the electron microscope, making a battery, and making cDNA were all really interesting experiences that I didn't think I'

One more mini-report and we will be done with all the assignments... Wow this semester has definitely been one of the  wildest semester. Never have I ever spent so much time on one class, a rough estimate of more than 15 hours a week. And I am simply amazed at the fact that I survived through all of this (I mean, if I can survive the mini-report). As the semester started, I was filled with excitement. As much as I like theoretical materials, I have to say that hands-on learning is my favorite. Indeed one of my favorite classes so far has been 20.309! Being one of the few juniors taking the class, I didn't know most of the students in the class. It was incredible how I got to know my classmates and especially my teammates as the semester proceeded. Going through all the hardships together, especially the Mod1 data summary, we bonded pretty well. The excitement slowly went down towards the end of Mod2. The material was definitely interesting, and from hindsight, I believe that the

The research proposal was a really great exercise in identifying a current problem and potential, feasible solution within a practical time period. While the other modules introduced and familiarized us to the actual lab work and etiquette needed to answer a research question, the goals, quality checks, and troubleshooting considerations weren't thought of by us. That being said, this research proposal was a more difficult assignment in many regards. Browsing through the discussion sections of numerous papers I was interested in gave me an idea of what a next step would be, but considering that I had no real expertise in any of those areas it was still difficult to identify what specific assays would be needed for those next steps. Because of this, I also had a hard time deciding on a general area for my topic. In this regard, listing 5 areas and then trying to blend them with my partners' helped us define a creative topic area that we could look more into. The timescale for

I never thought I would enjoy coming up with a research proposal so much. As soon as I saw that we would be graded on creativity, I was concerned that we wouldn't be able to come up with anything "novel" enough. Between classes and lab, I haven't had to scientifically think in the creative sense. Concepts and projects are usually presented to me processed and ready for assembly and/or consumption. How do I even start writing a recipe? I shouldn't have worried. My partner and I came up with so many grandiose and fun ideas, our bigger problem was figuring out how to make them feasible. It was after many rounds of talking to Noreen, talking to Prof. Belcher, talking to my former UROP mentor (since my UROP inspired the idea for my project), and reading up papers to that our idea reached its final form. The process was, much to my surprise, exhilarating and satisfying. By the end, I was quite emotionally invested in our research proposal. It felt like a project I wou

One expectation that was initially daunting to me after being admitted to MIT was innovation. It seemed that everyone’s perception was that you go to MIT to invent things, and that terrified me because I had no clue where anybody got ideas. If you simply google search biology problems, you get enormous and broad suggestions to cure cancer and stop climate change. Thus, being assigned to come up with a research proposal seemed extreme, but I absolutely believe that it served its purpose in pushing us through our comfort zones to the hard, yet fascinating, questions that give MIT the persona of “the place where people invent things.” Of course, carrying out the research is another beast, but previous experiences on campus have shown me that process. This was the first time I had been exposed to brainstorming and researching the literature in hopes to either bring technology to biology or explore biology with technology. It was difficult and fascinating and ultimately rewarding. I d

I know we've all said multiple times, but it really can't be said enough. We're finally hear, at the very end of 20.109. Research proposal presentations are over, last mini-report is in the process. And yet, it still feels like I submitted my very first M1 research article literally yesterday. Looking back at the semester, I really made it through 20.109 day by day. With the constant workflow  of homework assignments, quizzes and managing the ever escalating levels of stress, I rarely found time to step back and realize just how much we have accomplished. From learning new lab techniques, to building a strong with my lab partner and forever friend Tooba, to become a common visitor at the BE communications lab to  fan-girling over the one and only Angela Belcher, this semester has been filled with lots of growth and a whole lot of life.           20.109 has been one of the hardest things I've done so far. As I worked on reports and presentations late into the nigh

Honestly, since the beginning of last week, I knew that the research proposal was the only thing standing between me and a child end to the school year. It was on my mind from the beginning since Monday and wouldn't leave my mind until my presentation ended on Friday. However, the thing that made the entire process bearable was the fact that the information I was presenting was so interesting and happened to be something I was extremely passionate about too. Ovarian cancer is an important disease that is severely underrepresented in literature and coming from a family line whose women periodically have problems with ovaries, I was passionate about learning more about ovarian cancer and why it was so under studied. My partner and I found extremely interesting information about the disease as well as new studies and methods that we incorporated into our presentation. Although we spent really long nights working on the presentation and many hours in Darwins crying over the layout

It's done. It's over. 20.109 is over. All those night, all those hours spent staring at blank documents. They're over. I'm not sure how I feel yet honestly. I've always been slow to process things (much to lab partner's annoyance) , and this is no less. I feel relived I guess. I don't know. The project proposal, and mod 3 in general, made us look at the greater context of biological engineering. From designing our own experiments to exploring a novel use of phages, I think module three is by far my favorite. I guess I would like to first shout out W/F blue team and my partner, jsyao. It's been real. Thanks for everything, from the swipes to enduring my semi-lucid state. I think we are greater than the sum of our parts (laughs in mod 2). We are class-A team. don't @ me. For the assignment itself, I felt that it was pretty fun. We got to pick something that pique our curiosity and try to create something viable from it (although 50 years of liter

Coming into lab and doing all sorts of cool experiments definitely was a time. I'm still super excited to walk up to people and them be like: 'you're building a battery out of what??" I've definitely grown as a biologist and as a researcher and I have the teaching staff and my peers to thank for that. So for now, this is my peace out, but not without a meme first!

MOD3 was really a ride. I feel like people made it seem like after the research article life was easy and that is INCORRECT. While MOD3 was no where near as brutal as MOD2, I still put a ridiculous amount of hours into the research proposal. The best part of the research proposal, for me, was working with my lab partner on it. In between practice runs of our presentation we played phenomenal music (including but not limited to Breaking Free and Love Story). It was really fun to have a partner to support you during the process and it helped me hold myself to a higher standard than I do sometimes when it's just me. Having a lab partner that you both enjoy being around and also trust and respect is a major key to having an enjoyable 109 experience. And with that 109 is basically over (except for the mini-report - another "easy" thing that is actually hard and time consuming?? the world may never know)!!! This class has been crazy. I have felt myself grow so much as a sci

Blogging about the struggles that come with 20.109 is almost therapeutic at this point. When I submitted the research article, I blogged about it right after submission and I remember how much better I felt, knowing that there was an outlet where my predicaments could be read and acknowledged. So first off, kudos to blogging and taking out time to process and talk about *feelings*. We don't do enough of that at MIT! I'm glad this class ended (minus the Mini-report) on a high-note. And by high note, I mean by showing me exactly why I chose to be a biological engineer. The first assignment of Mod 3 had me reeling with joy and despite the fact that I had a hell week then and should have been preparing for an exam, I took my sweet time to find the most exciting news in the world of biological engineering. Every research paper I read, left me absolutely in awe and I looked up people to contact in case I wanted to do research with them at some point or just have a conversation and

109 was a soft-skills class... A much needed soft-skills class.  As much as I liked the lab component of 109, learning how to communicate science effectively was definitely the most valuable thing I got out of the class. I could have just read papers and UROPed to learn about the topics we covered in class, however there is no way I could have gotten as much practice communicating without this class. After surviving 109 I feel confident in my ability to write about science, as well as my ability to give a presentation on the topic. While I certainly am not ready to defend a thesis, or present a research proposal to a real panel quite yet, I am much more confident in my abilities than I was before.  Also, learning how to make figures payed off. I had to make some for my UROP, and it felt good to be able to represent a semester's worth of hard work into figures without my supervisor's guidance.  Thanks to all involved in the behind-the-scenes of the class. I'm su

This was my favorite project to work on. I loved the collaboration and freedom. Usually in my UROP, I am just doing smaller projects that my mentor tells me to do within a larger goal, so this was a whole new world. The process, from posing ideas to researching, and then coming up for a proposal was very engaging. When we started our pitching ideas, we had so many. A challenge was trying to focus on just one idea without branching out to others. This process made me realize how capable I am to come up with new ideas. Often, I doubt my ability to be innovative as it sometimes seems other people have “already thought of that idea”. Further, I never connected research with creativity for some reason, but this process has shown me that there is creativity within research .   Once we chose a specific topic and goal, researching (to the best of our ability) was so interesting. I loved learning new topics and subjects. Thanks to our journal club, it was easier to sift through jo

Yeet! It's over. I have lots of feels! 1) This class was super cute in that it gave me MAJOR high school vibes (guys, I peaked in high school so this is a major compliment). Our class size was small, our professors could at least recognize our faces (if they didn't know our names already), we had homework due every class, we interacted often, there were quizzes, attendance was mandatory, etc. This class set up is what 8.01 TEAL wishes it could be. I liked how this class made me remember what it's like to learn together in a group as opposed to individually. 2) Shout out to Fransisco for dealing with me and holding me accountable this semester. :) I definitely tried a lot harder knowing that a lot of assignments were based on teamwork/ team grades. 3) I made friends in Course 20!!! (hopefully this sentiment is mutual and reciprocal) 4) I'm so proud of all of us for doing such amazing things. 5) Lot's of suffering was felt this semester but a) is there ever not s

20.109 took more hours than my other 3 classes combined some weeks. The class demanded more of me than any MIT class I have had so far. What made it so challenging was that throughout the process, I had no idea what on earth was going on. Every day we learned new material and were expected to apply it rapidly. Not only were we learning so quickly, but we had to pivot between different skill sets. Be a good scientist! Keep a good lab journal and keep the lab clean. Be a good researcher! Conduct assays you've never done before properly. Avoid contaminations. Be a good communicator! Write something. Present something. Write a different thing you don't know how to do. Become an expert on somebody else's work. Be a good time manager! Good luck with this one. I floundered my way through 20.109, constantly asking "why are we doing this." And then it alllllll became clear. When I was in high school, people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was good

I guess spending 15-20 hours a week with someone will really bring you together (or make you hate each other, it really depends). Don't worry Grey team , I love ya guys. Glad to say that regardless of how jaded we were by the time we got to Mod 3 (seriously, we named our Google Drive folder for this module "we almost out"), we still managed to laugh our way through the assignments (and not the maniacal variety, the normal/fun kind). Getting through this research proposal at 11 pm in the Stud definitely was not the most enjoyable, but actually ideating and creating our proposal was super fun. It was weird to see how our seemingly outlandish ideas actually had scientific backing and how they came together to create a cohesive goal. Figuring out how to organize these ideas into a cohesive (and succinct) presentation was probably the hardest part. And when we finally thought we worked out all the details of our project, a question would come up that would raise anothe