This pre-approved experience offered in the spring semester of 2016 turned into a total of three honors experiences and changed my college career for the better. I originally learned about the Biomedical Research and Mentoring Program (RaMP) the first semester of my freshman year, and I was immediately drawn to the opportunities the program offered. Research was something I had never done before and was highly recommended for any student on the pre-med track. This seemed like a relatively easy way to connect with a lab and get a sense of the research and the mentor with whom I would be working. Eventually, I matched with the Lewkowich lab in the immunobiology division of Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center studying allergic asthma, with Dr. Jaclyn McAlees as my postdoctoral mentor. Before beginning research, I did not have a good sense of what I would doing, nor did I understand much of the presentations the mentors gave on their research. I learned from this initial experience that it is much more important, as an undergraduate, to choose a lab based on the mentor you receive rather than the actual type of research one does. Because of my lack of knowledge on immunology or any of the advanced research presented, I found it was more beneficial to seek out a close mentor-mentee relationship, one where the mentor was accessible and amiable enough to teach lab skills effectively, rather than base the lab choice off of research I did not understand. I believe regardless of the type of research I pursued, I would become passionate about the background of research and topic analyzed as long as I had a good relationship with my mentor.
Since joining my lab, I have learned so much about the lab environment, wet lab skills, career choices in science, scientific writing skills, regulations in science, and the dynamics of research. One semester of research eight hours per week evolved into an additional summer in the lab working around 24 hours per week, closer relationships with my lab mates, more knowledge acquired, and more skills developed. I went from having no research experience whatsoever, being uncomfortable in the lab, and not comprehending scientific papers to gaining valuable knowledge and experiential learning, mentoring another student in my lab, and writing a whole research paper on the background of my research and my experiences in the lab (see: Intermediate Composition). At the end of the summer of 2016, I presented a poster about my research in the Capstone Poster Symposium in the Medical Sciences Building in the UC College of Medicine (see poster below). I look forward to continuing research into the foreseeable future.
Since joining my lab, I have learned so much about the lab environment, wet lab skills, career choices in science, scientific writing skills, regulations in science, and the dynamics of research. One semester of research eight hours per week evolved into an additional summer in the lab working around 24 hours per week, closer relationships with my lab mates, more knowledge acquired, and more skills developed. I went from having no research experience whatsoever, being uncomfortable in the lab, and not comprehending scientific papers to gaining valuable knowledge and experiential learning, mentoring another student in my lab, and writing a whole research paper on the background of my research and my experiences in the lab (see: Intermediate Composition). At the end of the summer of 2016, I presented a poster about my research in the Capstone Poster Symposium in the Medical Sciences Building in the UC College of Medicine (see poster below). I look forward to continuing research into the foreseeable future.