Hello FRI-ers!
I know that coming to college and starting a whole new life style is stressful enough, but on top off that y’all also added research to the mix! Let’s just say I’m proud of you. However, now come the self-imposed questions, “Do I want to continue research?”, “Is research really right for me?”, “What stream do I join next semester?”, and many more. And all of these overwhelming questions would turn most people into my cat: tired with no motivation.
But I can help you out with at least one of these questions and that is the question “What stream do I join next semester?” Sure I can’t tell you much about streams other than DIY Diagnostics but I can at least tell you about my own experience in this lab.
I joined DIY Diagnostics because it allowed me to practice many different problems research would address. By this I mean that while in the stream I did a variety of labs from figuring out if pollutants (like E.coli and enterococcus) were present in Waller Creek to PCR which is where I isolated a strand of DNA, replicated it, and sequenced it. This lab also works on programing as well (Don’t worry! You don’t need to know any coding going into it. I sure didn’t.) which is becoming more of a necessity for many jobs now. Even though the work was hard there were always plenty, and I mean PLENTY, of people to help me out from my mentors to my fellow lab mates. Also, it was the people in the lab that made it fun!
So if you’re looking for a lab where you’ll learn a lot, have tons of support and have a good time DIY Diagnostics fits the bill!
P.S. You can set your own hours to work in the lab which is super helpful.