UT Shield

Texas REU: BME CUReS Cancer

2016

, Filed Under: 2016, austin, fun, research

Our Journey Thus Far

During the past month we have created many memories here in Austin both inside and outside our research labs. We have been able to spend time together to enjoy what Austin has to offer, work hard and diligently in order to learn what is required to do research, and learn together through our seminars and workshops. While we all come from different places, backgrounds, and circumstances, I feel that our focus on research and our goals have helped us understand each other.

Our journeys are barely starting and there is a lot of work down the road. The more knowledge I gather the more I learn there are so many things I still need to learn. However, with the help of my mentors I have been able to progress quickly and begin the first step of my research career.
There is also more to our summer than just research. We were all told about how amazing the city is and got to experience that ourselves. From exploring the city, getting caught in the rain, playing together in the game room, going to the social events, using public transportation and getting lost, swimming, and eating together. All that time we have spent together making memories and getting to know each other has helped me grow as a person.
It is easier to get through the difficult parts of my summer because I don’t have to go through them by myself. I am grateful for this opportunity as I continue to learn about research and about life itself.
-Jose Perez, University of Texas at El Paso

, Filed Under: 2016, cancer, learning, reflections

Mindset and Emperor Readings

This summer I’ll be reading Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck, where author recognizes there are two types of mindsets after conducting a study on children trying to figure out puzzles that increase difficulty. The mindsets she finds discovers are the fixed and growth. The fixed mindset represents the individuals that only go through life on their genetically given abilities and intellect. In comparison,

the growth mindset are the individuals that rise to a challenge and don’t necessarily care if they get something wrong but want to learn from their failures.

Photo by Alston Feggins of the trees by Moore Hill Dormitory.
Photo by Alston Feggins of the trees by Moore Hill Dormitory.

I had parallels to my own life from the suggested situations that resulted with either a fixed or a growth mindset to my own life. I wonder if someone can have a varied mindset that is situational rather than having one or the other.

I have as any other college students have experienced failure if it was from grades to projects to life. I know that I cope with failure knowing that it’s a part of life but the little voice in my head is my own devil’s advocate that always reminds that it would be alright to sit in my own self-pity and eat ice cream all day because I experienced failure. Though I do crave and have ice cream, but I do pick myself up and make a plan on how to correct the situation.

Does that mean in the moment I allow myself to sit in my self-pity is because I have a fixed mindset?

When I read the section on failures, the fixed mindset was fixated on the failure itself and wanting to self-destruct. The growth mindset was learning from their failure and wanting to know what they did wrong so they can correct it for next time.

The growth mindset is how innovation occurs where individuals see a problem and think of ways to solve such problem. This problem-solving method draws parallels in The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee, a historical journey from first discovering cancer to the developments of better equipment and treatments. The book flips from situations of a doctor treating a patient that was just diagnosed with cancer to a doctor testing new experimental drug on live patients with childhood leukemia. There is one front but played in different sections around the world of researchers, medical physicians, families and patients all working together to fight against cancer.

-Alston Feggins, Florida Institute of Technology

, Filed Under: 2016, graduate school, reflections, research

Considering Research as a Career

Photo by Hannah Horng at the pedestrian footbridge across Lady Bird Lake
Photo by Hannah Horng at the pedestrian footbridge across Lady Bird Lake

I’ve never been one to think particularly far ahead into the future—the idea that I don’t know who or where I am going to be in a couple years terrifies me. That’s why I’ve often avoided thinking too much about the details of graduate school, namely where I want to go or what I want to study. I’ve focused more on what I do know for sure—that I want my future career to be centered around biological research, and to do research at a higher level I need to go to graduate school. To that end I’ve tried to center my college experience around widening my horizons and learning about all the possibilities and applications that the world of bioengineering has to offer in hopes of finally finding a subject that I’m passionate about.

This REU has challenged me to work in optics, a field that I know next to nothing about. I’ve never taken a microscopy class and I’ve never operated anything more complicated than your average fluorescence microscope. The past three weeks have been a crash course of protocols and concepts that I’ve never seen before, and in the process I’ve learned valuable lessons about research as a career path.

The primary lesson is that there are a multitude of different ways to approach a problem, and hence many ways to research it.

Finding a field that I’m passionate about is not as easy as interning in one lab and letting that determine my entire problem solving approach. Over the course of the summer I’ve opened my eyes to a new method of diagnosing cancer and assessing the mechanisms of cancer treatments (through single particle trajectories). Cancer is the common enemy, and there’s more than one way to wage war on it. Coming to Austin has shown me that there’s a wider world out there, in both the research sense and the literal sense.

We’re still rising sophomores, so we still have time left to explore more opportunities before we apply to graduate school programs. Here’s to hoping that we find our callings in the next couple years, and complete part of that journey this summer.

-Hannah Horng, Univ of Maryland, College Park