End of semester thoughts

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 from literature (ie JC and RP) taught me to think about research more as a continual process rather than a means to an end. All in all, I'm glad I didn't put off 20.109 to next semester, because if anything, through all three of the modules, I know now that I am more sure than I have ever been of choosing course 20.

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