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tarigwaemirAd Mundo Exteriore,
I forgot that I took this quiz:
Kendo was exhausting. Most of the pain is hitting me now, six hours after practice ended. I'm skeptical about my ability to move right now. -_-
I just found out that one of the National Astrobiology Institute's lead teams is here in the Organismal and Evolutionary Biology department, but their approach is mostly paleontological, focusing more on fossils than on living microbial ecosystems or prebiotic synthesis. (Astrobiology technically studies the possibility of life on other planets but has become a blanket term to cover origin of life studies.) There's another laboratory that works with endosymbionts in marine environments as well as chemosynthetic archaea, but their most recent papers are all about sequence analysis techniques. Which is cool, but I really don't want to do much more bioinformatics. What's especially ironic is that the Center for Genomics Research has all these interesting noncomputational projects even though the definition of genomics implies that its focus is mostly computational. There's a particularly interesting experiment using yeast that looks for the effects on phenotype under extreme selective pressures. The Center itself has this whole new "theory" about how to study cellular processes as a network of "modules", which I don't entirely understand, but it sounds pretty fascinating anyway. They have a summer internship program for undergraduates, which I definitely want to apply to. There's also some interesting research on archaea going on at the astrobiology branch of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, but it's a graduate-level-and-above institution. >_< Too many of the astrobiological teams have a rising senior minimum for internship positions. Um, I understand that I'm pretty inexperienced as an undergraduate, but I kind of want to see the research in this field before I just fling myself into a thesis project commitment! And maybe get enough background in the field so I can actually think of a thesis proposal in junior year! Honestly! The concentration guidelines all insinuate that you should start your thesis during junior year so that you can have enough time to overcome any unexpected hurdles in your research. How are you supposed to do that if labs won't hire you until you're already supposed to be halfway through your project?
Yes, I know, I don't need to be stressing about this now. It's all a long way off in the future, etc., etc. But I do feel a lot of pressure because my research experience in high school is paltry compared to other people here (who have Intel and ISEF credits to their name). Since you start applying for summer internships and jobs in December or January, you need to start looking around pretty soon to know at least what programs are out there. I don't think it's really necessary to start research next summer, but then, I need to earn money anyway, so why waste time by tutoring when I could receive a much higher stipend at a lab?
...Tari
I forgot that I took this quiz:
| The Ultimate LiveJournal Obsession Test | ||
| Category | Your Score | Average LJer |
| Community Attachment | 19.35% You've got pals to cheer you up when you're down, but no audience to applaud you... Yet. | 24.85% |
| MemeSheepage | 29.82% Easily amused | 30.64% |
| Original Content | 45.16% Some stories must be told - and you're the one to tell them | 40.47% |
| Psychodrama Quotient | 4.82% Warning: Can Flame When Necessary | 16.94% |
| Attention Whoring | 18.18% Slothfully Seeking Susan | 21.74% |
Take The Ultimate LiveJournal Obsession Test and see how you match up! | ||
Kendo was exhausting. Most of the pain is hitting me now, six hours after practice ended. I'm skeptical about my ability to move right now. -_-
I just found out that one of the National Astrobiology Institute's lead teams is here in the Organismal and Evolutionary Biology department, but their approach is mostly paleontological, focusing more on fossils than on living microbial ecosystems or prebiotic synthesis. (Astrobiology technically studies the possibility of life on other planets but has become a blanket term to cover origin of life studies.) There's another laboratory that works with endosymbionts in marine environments as well as chemosynthetic archaea, but their most recent papers are all about sequence analysis techniques. Which is cool, but I really don't want to do much more bioinformatics. What's especially ironic is that the Center for Genomics Research has all these interesting noncomputational projects even though the definition of genomics implies that its focus is mostly computational. There's a particularly interesting experiment using yeast that looks for the effects on phenotype under extreme selective pressures. The Center itself has this whole new "theory" about how to study cellular processes as a network of "modules", which I don't entirely understand, but it sounds pretty fascinating anyway. They have a summer internship program for undergraduates, which I definitely want to apply to. There's also some interesting research on archaea going on at the astrobiology branch of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, but it's a graduate-level-and-above institution. >_< Too many of the astrobiological teams have a rising senior minimum for internship positions. Um, I understand that I'm pretty inexperienced as an undergraduate, but I kind of want to see the research in this field before I just fling myself into a thesis project commitment! And maybe get enough background in the field so I can actually think of a thesis proposal in junior year! Honestly! The concentration guidelines all insinuate that you should start your thesis during junior year so that you can have enough time to overcome any unexpected hurdles in your research. How are you supposed to do that if labs won't hire you until you're already supposed to be halfway through your project?
Yes, I know, I don't need to be stressing about this now. It's all a long way off in the future, etc., etc. But I do feel a lot of pressure because my research experience in high school is paltry compared to other people here (who have Intel and ISEF credits to their name). Since you start applying for summer internships and jobs in December or January, you need to start looking around pretty soon to know at least what programs are out there. I don't think it's really necessary to start research next summer, but then, I need to earn money anyway, so why waste time by tutoring when I could receive a much higher stipend at a lab?
...Tari
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Date: 2003-09-27 06:51 pm (UTC)Youre crazy.
Yeah, I said that before.
Hrmph. I should take that quiz. Who thinks I'll get 0% on all of the categories?