The DIY Diagnostics stream had a very appealing curriculum and hands-on interaction aspect. It was my second choice, but after having two semesters of experience under my belt, I can honestly say that it would hands down be my first choice if I had to do the selection over again. The friends you make, the amazing lab experiments that are preformed, and the knowledge that is gained from the experiences of this stream are truly one-of-a-kind. I remember coming into this stream feeling extremely nervous. I was incapable of doing a chemistry lab properly in high school and was constantly making my anatomy teacher ornery during dissections. Once I went through the PAI 2.10 doors, I knew it was a place for me to learn and where my mistakes would be accepted no matter how dim-witted they may have been. It was a feeling of comfort that only grew as the first semester progressed. One does a lot of growing up their first year of college and with a 6 hour a week lab requirement, I did a lot of mine in lab or outside on those half-doughnut tables learning how to log data and write stellar lab reports.
In the second semester of DIY Diagnostics, projects were selected to work on, mine was a UV diagnostic. There were so many brilliant ideas floating around the DIY lab like a diagnostic for Rocky Mountain Fever, an app that could tell you what pill you have, a diagnostic for cancer, and so many more. The research conducted in this lab is so exciting and if I wasn’t a CNS major I would conclude basically impossible for any undergraduate, let alone any freshman could accomplish. The ideas concocted and pursued in this lab are truly inspiring. The coding people are capable of doing for apps, jaw-dropping, I could barely accomplish one line of code on my own during the coding assignments assigned last year. I was part of a group diagnostic, that was working on creating a component that could measure the total amount of UV radiation an individual was exposed to. I was constantly asking for help, but the great thing is, no matter how basic the question my classmates and mentors were there to help me and didn’t judge even a little bit, they may have been slightly annoyed by me at some points throughout the semester. I did deserve it though, one time we were staring at the computer screen for what felt like hours searching for what was wrong with my code and it turned out that I had omitted a coma from one of the sequences. DIY Diagnostics was the perfect stream for me and I could not have learned more about communication, thriving from your mistakes, and how-to perfectly aliquot from anywhere else other than this stream.
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