Failure is Okay!

Looking around all the posters at the FRI picnic my freshman year, I remember feeling excited and overwhelmed -excited because I would be able to join labs that specialize in anything from Astronomy to Computer Science and overwhelmed because I honestly had no clue which stream to choose. What finally pushed me to pick DIY Diagnostics was the breadth of knowledge I could gain: coding skills, microbio techniques, field sampling, 3D printing etc. At the core of how I have structured my own major/certificate pathway is the idea that I want an interdisciplinary education. DIY fit perfectly into my plan.

This semester I got the opportunity to design and build an app to diagnosis and differentiate measles, rubella, and roseola, three common pediatric rashes, from each other. My spring semester mostly consisted of learning wet-lab techniques/field sampling, but with my fall semester research project, I got the opportunity to build on the programming skills which I learned in the spring. Other interesting projects in our lab include the Parkinson’s keystroke project, one of the only FRI projects that let you work with actual patients, and a UV wearable project! The DIY Diagnostics stream gives its students a lot of freedom to pick a project that they are curious about and as long as it has relevance as a diagnostic tool, you can investigate it. This was definitely a unique quality about our lab.

As someone with prior experience working in a lab, the first few skill development assignments were familiar and dare I say easy. But, don’t worry if that is you, skill developments get more complex and challenging fast and that makes it even more fun. Through it all, one of the biggest takeaways I got –beside that awesome skillset! – is that in DIY, failure is okay, failure is encouraged, and failure is celebrated. I wouldn’t call myself a perfectionist, but making mistakes is never fun, especially when society has taught us that making mistakes in an educational setting equates to a penalty. Research is tough, mind-bending, and yes filled with failure, but working in this lab gave me a community to support me through it all. During the roughly six-seven hours you spend in lab spring semester, and eight to nine in the fall, there is definitely a camaraderie formed between all students working in the lab. These are people you will want to joke around with, laugh with, and go grab Burrito Factory with!