Finishing Mod2 with some very Chocolaty Cookies 🍪


Wow, that research article was really something. I think one part I found challenging about module 2 was being able to follow the R exercises and really understand the plots and heat maps as I made them. I actually kind of like coding and maybe would have liked a better understanding of R, but I know the focus in 109 isn't to learn all the fundamentals of coding in R. I often just felt like I was copying and pasting commands, which made it harder for me to see what data was actually being used to generate certain values or produce certain graphs. Also, the fact that we were unable to do many experiments ourselves made it harder for me to feel as engaged in the module. In writing the results section, I found it hard to see an overall, cohesive story line, but I do feel like I was able to gain a lot from analyzing all the data we gathered. I also thought that writing the methods section was going to be easiest since I had already written most of them, but I found it more difficult than expected since I couldn’t visualize and figure out the best way to explain the experiments we didn't do ourselves (in fact I almost totally forgot to include those parts).

Besides the challenges I encountered, I really enjoyed learning about the experimental techniques and applications we used in this module. Before 20.109, I feel like it was hard to understand some of the research being done in bioengineering, but now I have gotten a glimpse into some actual experimental techniques and the purposes behind those experiments. Being able to physically conduct experiments (well, up until the pandemic) has really made me start to feel like a bioengineer, especially since many previous courses have just been lecture-based without hands-on components.

Overall, I'm just glad to have completed the research article, and I even treated myself to one of these delicious, home baked chocolate chunk cookies my sister made over the weekend - I guess there are some perks to being stuck at home 😋

-Anais







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