Research Article Thoughts (+ Dogs!!! 🐶)

The Research Article is done, and I feel like I have mostly caught up from break. I am looking forward to the next few weeks of 109 where I can learn about something new without the stress of a major writing assignment. The topics I looked up for homework were all very interesting, and I feel even more eager to learn because I felt such a deep personal connection to each topic. My goal as a scientist in the future is to help people in any way I can, and this assignment reminded me of how far research has come and how much work there is still to be done. 

Anyways - the Research Article. While writing this and doing more research for the background/discussion, I realized how many scientific papers I have been reading lately, between this class and my UROP. In the past few months alone I have gone from barely being able to get through an article to becoming fairly proficient in understanding the main points and extracting important data from articles. Writing my own on the other hand is a much more difficult task that I definitely need more practice in. I really tried to pace myself in writing this article, but every time I would write I found myself going down rabbit holes of new information and various findings from other research. That being said, the writing process took quite a bit longer than I expected. I felt like I understood the figures we generated, but I had a hard time putting my thoughts into words to clearly express the results. I am glad to have this experience though, I would much rather work on assignments like these in a classroom setting, where people are very willing to help me learn than down the road trying to figure it out for myself.

Between the work, I did manage some fun this weekend: I had a surprise visitor from a family friend (maintaining adequate social distancing), and my nearly 12-year-old dog got to play with his 4-month-old puppy (pics attached). I also got in a couple Zoom CrossFit workouts which always helps me feel rejuvenated. It’s hard to believe this semester is almost over, but we are in the home stretch! 

I hope you have a great rest of your week!
Hannah




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