PA schools requires a lot of stuff in order to apply, and unfortunately, they all have slightly different requirements. The majority, however, require a recommendation letter from a professor. I haven't ever really worked very closely with a professor, so I knew that I would need to acquire an undergraduate research job in order to gain that relationship with a professor.
I spent a few days looking at different professor in different fields of science to determine where I felt I could be an asset, but let me tell you, I felt very under qualified for any and all science-related research jobs. Science isn't easy for me, and I was worried that my lack of understanding in areas such as Biochemistry or cancer research would severely affect my ability to gain a research opportunity. I was very nervous to contact professors, asking for a time to meet so as to discuss the possibility of me joining his/her lab.
I decided to attend an event held by BYU called "She is a Scientist." It sounded interesting and there was free food, which is the call of almost every college student. There, we had a keynote speaker who discussed the difficulties that women face in STEM careers, and we were then given time to work with mentors to discuss and evaluate how we can change that. I ended up at a table with a woman named Jamie Jensen. She is a Biology professor at BYU, and she had subbed for one of my Bio courses before. I remembered that she was an excellent teacher, and I started a conversation with her. I felt like I should ask her if she was looking for research assistants, to which she replied that she always welcomes more research assistants. She basically gave me a job right then and there after nothing but a brief conversation. I couldn't believe how easily the opportunity had landed in my lap.
Working with Dr. Jensen has been nice, because she is very relaxed, and as long as you do what you say you will, she's good. We do research about how to improve biological education, and the teaching of STEM topics. It isn't exactly hard-core research, but I get to observe different faculty members and work on a lot of different projects. We are working on a couple of different publications right now, which will also look good for PA schools.
Back in November, Dr. Jensen told us that there was a conference called SABER West held every January in California for researchers in Biological Education. At first, I wasn't too interested, but then she told us that BYU would be paying, and we could all work on posters to present. That sounded good to me, since I had never been to California, and again, it would look good for PA schools.
Fast forward to this past weekend. I headed to the Life Sciences Building on Friday afternoon to meet the rest of my lab to head to the airport. I was excited, because I had never been to California, but I was a little nervous for the poster presentation. My partner and I had been working on our poster all week, and as with all group work, there were some issues with another guy who hadn't done his part, so we were working last minute to get the poster done. Needless to say, it looked pretty good when we first saw it printed out. It looked professional and had nice diagrams and information on it.
It was pretty crazy landing in California and stepping outside into the warm, 60 degree weather, especially coming from 26 degree Utah. We caught a shuttle to our hotel to check in, and then headed to dinner. The rest of the conference was partying it up at a two hour happy hour, but as the resident members of the church, no drinking for us :) Instead, one of our resident Californians in the lab suggested we head to a restaurant called Wahoo's for some legit California food. The fish tacos did not disappoint. They were crispy and fresh and healthy. We had some good conversation, and it was nice to get to know people in the lab a little better. There were ten of us total that went, and before this weekend, I was still a little fuzzy on some of their names, but I've got them now :)
We also had a good time admiring the many ritzy cars that exist in California. I think that in an entire parking lot, we saw maybe one or two Toyotas, a single Honda, and... nope, that's it. The rest consisted of Lexus, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, and Cadillacs. There are also tons of signs around reminding everyone of the reused water in the ground. Not sure why that was relevant, but oh well. I appreciate California trying to be really environmentally conscious.
I also had my own little victory when I went up to the counter at Wahoo's after dinner, and asked if they had stickers. I love collecting magnets and stickers from places I visit, and I really loved the food. I asked if they had stickers, and the guy bent down and pulled out three. I asked how much they were, and he told me I could just have them. They were free. DOPE!
We went back to the hotel and spent the next hour going over our poster presentations with Dr. Jensen so she could give us pointers and help us be a little more cohesive when presenting. I was really proud of my partner, Mahea, and myself. Some people came as a partner on a poster, but just so they could come, but they didn't really present anything, while their partner did everything. Mahea and I had spent so much time working on the poster together and working out how we would split the presentation that we were very equally sharing the time.
Side note. My newfound early bedtime means that by 10:00pm on Friday night, I was completely exhausted, and very happy to fall asleep in my own queen sized bed.
The next morning, we got up early to get onto the first shuttle, and have first dibs at breakfast. Honestly, they fed us really well at the conference. We had solid meals every day, with breakfast burritos, fruit, burgers, and a mashed potato bar, just to name a few. We also finally got to see California, as it was dark when we had arrived the day before. Honestly, I can see why so many people want to live in California. It is beautiful, and there are palm trees everywhere, and it's humid, but not muggy, and there are no bugs, and the air smells like salt. It really is lovely there, but honestly, I felt like it was a little warm, and if it was warm for me in January, I imagine that summertime in California would be far too hot for me. The campus of UC-Irvine was so beautiful though, and their mascot is an anteater, which I seriously love so dang much.
The conference itself was alright. I'll be totally honest; research just doesn't interest me as I wish it would. 95% of research is figuring out what doesn't work, and everyone is working on something different, so it takes forever before anyone figures anything out, and it's all just charts and data about how not statistically significant the experiment was. Maybe cancer research or something would be more interesting, but I just didn't love sitting there, listening to person after person telling us all how their project didn't work, yet we know that active teaching helps students learn better. It's just very complicated. I love my job at the plasma center so much more, because I'm engaged, and active, and I feel like I'm doing something. It was also a lot of socialization. We attended workshops where we would have to talk to other people about future experiments we hope to run, and it meant talking to a lot of strangers, which I don't love. And you would hope that they would be good connections for me, except I'm planning on heading into the medical field on the east coast, and these are all researchers on the west coast. They were nice people though, and again, I did love getting to know my lab better.
Our poster presentation went pretty well. Some researchers love to grill people on all aspects of their research, which is a little stressful, but we handled it alright.
Saturday night, I was wondering if we would be able to attend church the next morning, as we are a religious university, and I hadn't heard anything from anybody else. So, I sent a message on the group text asking if we could go to church. I found a ward that started at 9:30 am, and it was close by, and we would only miss a little bit of the conference. My professor responded saying that I could go, but I would be responsible for my own transportation. That meant downloading my first ride-share app. More on that in a bit. After I got the response from my professor, I got a text from another one of the people in my lab, asking if he and another guy could come to church with me the next day. Then two other girls asked if they could come too. I loved that so many of us wanted to attend church. There was a perfectly good excuse to not go to church, and yet, so many people wanted to do so. We went to the conference first in the morning to get breakfast, then we ordered a Lyft. It was my first time ordering a Lyft, and it was kind of exciting, and very easy to use. It was also nice that there were so many of us to split the fare. I felt bad making people work so we could get to church, but I figured that Heavenly Father would forgive us because we just wanted to get to church. When we arrived, we were pretty happy to find out that the church building was right next to the Newport Beach temple. I wish we had had time to attend the temple while we were there, but the conference ran all of Saturday. It was a beautiful building and we quite enjoyed taking pictures with it :)
I loved going to California because I was able to make friends, visit a new place, and learn a lot. Plus, it made me happy to think that Glo and I were in the same state, albeit hundreds of miles away from each other. It also made me want to visit again soon, so I can see all that California has to offer. It's pretty awesome that it runs along the entire coastline. Research may not be a longtime commitment for me, but I'll enjoy it a lot more for the next year while working with friends. Hang loose!
I spent a few days looking at different professor in different fields of science to determine where I felt I could be an asset, but let me tell you, I felt very under qualified for any and all science-related research jobs. Science isn't easy for me, and I was worried that my lack of understanding in areas such as Biochemistry or cancer research would severely affect my ability to gain a research opportunity. I was very nervous to contact professors, asking for a time to meet so as to discuss the possibility of me joining his/her lab.
I decided to attend an event held by BYU called "She is a Scientist." It sounded interesting and there was free food, which is the call of almost every college student. There, we had a keynote speaker who discussed the difficulties that women face in STEM careers, and we were then given time to work with mentors to discuss and evaluate how we can change that. I ended up at a table with a woman named Jamie Jensen. She is a Biology professor at BYU, and she had subbed for one of my Bio courses before. I remembered that she was an excellent teacher, and I started a conversation with her. I felt like I should ask her if she was looking for research assistants, to which she replied that she always welcomes more research assistants. She basically gave me a job right then and there after nothing but a brief conversation. I couldn't believe how easily the opportunity had landed in my lap.
Working with Dr. Jensen has been nice, because she is very relaxed, and as long as you do what you say you will, she's good. We do research about how to improve biological education, and the teaching of STEM topics. It isn't exactly hard-core research, but I get to observe different faculty members and work on a lot of different projects. We are working on a couple of different publications right now, which will also look good for PA schools.
Back in November, Dr. Jensen told us that there was a conference called SABER West held every January in California for researchers in Biological Education. At first, I wasn't too interested, but then she told us that BYU would be paying, and we could all work on posters to present. That sounded good to me, since I had never been to California, and again, it would look good for PA schools.
Fast forward to this past weekend. I headed to the Life Sciences Building on Friday afternoon to meet the rest of my lab to head to the airport. I was excited, because I had never been to California, but I was a little nervous for the poster presentation. My partner and I had been working on our poster all week, and as with all group work, there were some issues with another guy who hadn't done his part, so we were working last minute to get the poster done. Needless to say, it looked pretty good when we first saw it printed out. It looked professional and had nice diagrams and information on it.
It was pretty crazy landing in California and stepping outside into the warm, 60 degree weather, especially coming from 26 degree Utah. We caught a shuttle to our hotel to check in, and then headed to dinner. The rest of the conference was partying it up at a two hour happy hour, but as the resident members of the church, no drinking for us :) Instead, one of our resident Californians in the lab suggested we head to a restaurant called Wahoo's for some legit California food. The fish tacos did not disappoint. They were crispy and fresh and healthy. We had some good conversation, and it was nice to get to know people in the lab a little better. There were ten of us total that went, and before this weekend, I was still a little fuzzy on some of their names, but I've got them now :)We also had a good time admiring the many ritzy cars that exist in California. I think that in an entire parking lot, we saw maybe one or two Toyotas, a single Honda, and... nope, that's it. The rest consisted of Lexus, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, and Cadillacs. There are also tons of signs around reminding everyone of the reused water in the ground. Not sure why that was relevant, but oh well. I appreciate California trying to be really environmentally conscious.
I also had my own little victory when I went up to the counter at Wahoo's after dinner, and asked if they had stickers. I love collecting magnets and stickers from places I visit, and I really loved the food. I asked if they had stickers, and the guy bent down and pulled out three. I asked how much they were, and he told me I could just have them. They were free. DOPE!
We went back to the hotel and spent the next hour going over our poster presentations with Dr. Jensen so she could give us pointers and help us be a little more cohesive when presenting. I was really proud of my partner, Mahea, and myself. Some people came as a partner on a poster, but just so they could come, but they didn't really present anything, while their partner did everything. Mahea and I had spent so much time working on the poster together and working out how we would split the presentation that we were very equally sharing the time.
Side note. My newfound early bedtime means that by 10:00pm on Friday night, I was completely exhausted, and very happy to fall asleep in my own queen sized bed.
The next morning, we got up early to get onto the first shuttle, and have first dibs at breakfast. Honestly, they fed us really well at the conference. We had solid meals every day, with breakfast burritos, fruit, burgers, and a mashed potato bar, just to name a few. We also finally got to see California, as it was dark when we had arrived the day before. Honestly, I can see why so many people want to live in California. It is beautiful, and there are palm trees everywhere, and it's humid, but not muggy, and there are no bugs, and the air smells like salt. It really is lovely there, but honestly, I felt like it was a little warm, and if it was warm for me in January, I imagine that summertime in California would be far too hot for me. The campus of UC-Irvine was so beautiful though, and their mascot is an anteater, which I seriously love so dang much.
The conference itself was alright. I'll be totally honest; research just doesn't interest me as I wish it would. 95% of research is figuring out what doesn't work, and everyone is working on something different, so it takes forever before anyone figures anything out, and it's all just charts and data about how not statistically significant the experiment was. Maybe cancer research or something would be more interesting, but I just didn't love sitting there, listening to person after person telling us all how their project didn't work, yet we know that active teaching helps students learn better. It's just very complicated. I love my job at the plasma center so much more, because I'm engaged, and active, and I feel like I'm doing something. It was also a lot of socialization. We attended workshops where we would have to talk to other people about future experiments we hope to run, and it meant talking to a lot of strangers, which I don't love. And you would hope that they would be good connections for me, except I'm planning on heading into the medical field on the east coast, and these are all researchers on the west coast. They were nice people though, and again, I did love getting to know my lab better.
Our poster presentation went pretty well. Some researchers love to grill people on all aspects of their research, which is a little stressful, but we handled it alright.
Saturday night, I was wondering if we would be able to attend church the next morning, as we are a religious university, and I hadn't heard anything from anybody else. So, I sent a message on the group text asking if we could go to church. I found a ward that started at 9:30 am, and it was close by, and we would only miss a little bit of the conference. My professor responded saying that I could go, but I would be responsible for my own transportation. That meant downloading my first ride-share app. More on that in a bit. After I got the response from my professor, I got a text from another one of the people in my lab, asking if he and another guy could come to church with me the next day. Then two other girls asked if they could come too. I loved that so many of us wanted to attend church. There was a perfectly good excuse to not go to church, and yet, so many people wanted to do so. We went to the conference first in the morning to get breakfast, then we ordered a Lyft. It was my first time ordering a Lyft, and it was kind of exciting, and very easy to use. It was also nice that there were so many of us to split the fare. I felt bad making people work so we could get to church, but I figured that Heavenly Father would forgive us because we just wanted to get to church. When we arrived, we were pretty happy to find out that the church building was right next to the Newport Beach temple. I wish we had had time to attend the temple while we were there, but the conference ran all of Saturday. It was a beautiful building and we quite enjoyed taking pictures with it :)
I loved going to California because I was able to make friends, visit a new place, and learn a lot. Plus, it made me happy to think that Glo and I were in the same state, albeit hundreds of miles away from each other. It also made me want to visit again soon, so I can see all that California has to offer. It's pretty awesome that it runs along the entire coastline. Research may not be a longtime commitment for me, but I'll enjoy it a lot more for the next year while working with friends. Hang loose!
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