Old Mentors
I opened my mailbox when I got to work again and saw a message for Bob. It had been a while since I last heard from him, I believe since his lab Christmas party last year. He wrote me to tell me that Elizabeth is graduating from med school and I should go to her graduation--which I already knew as she sent me an announcement. But it was good to hear from him again. And as usual he loves to give advice. He remarked on how EHD's back has been bothering him, which of course all of us already knew and hopes that I graduate soon! And he got an 8 million grant from NSF. Definitely a huge deal, and I'm happy for him. He complains that I never visit him though I go to campus every week. I think I shall stop by next week. And I can check out his new undergrads from the HHMI program he's running.
For those of you who do not know who Bob is, I credit him with the reason why I am in science today. If you ask me who is the single most important influence in my decision to pursue science as a career it would be him. It sounds like the stuff of movies but this is a true story--I swear. I arrived at UCLA in the Fall of '94 from NJC deciding that I hate science (particularly biology) and never want to have anything to do with it. My first bio GE class in psychobiology confirmed my decision; even though I did well it didn't really excite me to much. In the spring of that year I took Bob's HC25 class:The Human Genome--prospects for a super race? I figured that it was just another class to fulfill my GE requirements. But it was nothing like I had imagined. We studied science from the point of view of experiments, not facts, and that made all the difference. I believe the science in general is pretty badly taught, particularly at the pre-college levels. Teachers teach to the test way too much instead of teaching so their students can learn something and be inspired. And Biology is the worst of all, my non science friends tell me that it's all about memorization, when it doesn't have to be. It's about designing experiments, obtaining the data then interpreting it. Science became an adventure for me, always trying to figure out what experiment was done to solve a problem, rather than the standard regurgitating on an exam. In my 4th and 5th years as an undergrad I worked in Bob's lab, and we became very good friends. He's always been a great mentor to me, helping me with all my problems and looking out for me. He was the one who told me about the HHMI undergrad research fellowship, the NSF pre-doctoral fellowship, telling me to apply for these things. To this day he still gives me plenty of advice on coping with grad school and EHD (he was EHD's postdoc back in the day ~30 years ago). And I made some good friends in his lab, particularly Paul, who is now in New Zealand and is about to start a new job. It's funny when I look at his lab webpage now and only know Brandon and Anhthu. But that is the way science is, and that turnover is a good thing. You always get new blood, that's how you do great science.
For those of you who do not know who Bob is, I credit him with the reason why I am in science today. If you ask me who is the single most important influence in my decision to pursue science as a career it would be him. It sounds like the stuff of movies but this is a true story--I swear. I arrived at UCLA in the Fall of '94 from NJC deciding that I hate science (particularly biology) and never want to have anything to do with it. My first bio GE class in psychobiology confirmed my decision; even though I did well it didn't really excite me to much. In the spring of that year I took Bob's HC25 class:The Human Genome--prospects for a super race? I figured that it was just another class to fulfill my GE requirements. But it was nothing like I had imagined. We studied science from the point of view of experiments, not facts, and that made all the difference. I believe the science in general is pretty badly taught, particularly at the pre-college levels. Teachers teach to the test way too much instead of teaching so their students can learn something and be inspired. And Biology is the worst of all, my non science friends tell me that it's all about memorization, when it doesn't have to be. It's about designing experiments, obtaining the data then interpreting it. Science became an adventure for me, always trying to figure out what experiment was done to solve a problem, rather than the standard regurgitating on an exam. In my 4th and 5th years as an undergrad I worked in Bob's lab, and we became very good friends. He's always been a great mentor to me, helping me with all my problems and looking out for me. He was the one who told me about the HHMI undergrad research fellowship, the NSF pre-doctoral fellowship, telling me to apply for these things. To this day he still gives me plenty of advice on coping with grad school and EHD (he was EHD's postdoc back in the day ~30 years ago). And I made some good friends in his lab, particularly Paul, who is now in New Zealand and is about to start a new job. It's funny when I look at his lab webpage now and only know Brandon and Anhthu. But that is the way science is, and that turnover is a good thing. You always get new blood, that's how you do great science.
posted by La Nuage at 6:52 PM
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