Two years ago I posted a little blog post talking about my feelings and excitement in taking a 6-hour molecular biology lab course. I mentioned it once afterwards, then never again. So here’s a summary of what we did, how I felt during the course, and afterwards!
This course comprised of one 2.5 or 3 hour tutorial where our lab instructor would explain the upcoming lab to us. She would also go over the basics of the experiment, the theory behind it, how to do it, what the expected results were.
The next part of the course was the 6-hour lab component. Once a week we would have a full 6 hour lab in order to do the experiments given to us that week. Usually we didn’t need the full 6 hours, but there were times that called for the full amount.
Every week we had to update our lab books. Even though our TA’s didn’t check them every week, there was always the possibility they would. We included a Table of Contents to point out which page was which experiment and their corresponding results.
It was a fun, tough, and valuable course. I got to experience what it’s like to perform various molecular biology experiments that I learned in other classes. From preforming multiple PCR experiments to performing an SDS experiment, this course allowed you to be able to apply what you’ve learned in class and see what it’d be like working in a lab/ doing research. It also taught us how to manage our time more wisely, how to work individually and under a time restriction, and some nice basics of communication (through presentations and our lab book).
It’s sort of bittersweet to look back on this course. I absolutely loved learning and performing the experiments. I enjoyed working with the people in my section and the TA’s were super nice too. Yet, this course was difficult for me. I didn’t realize I was missing one course (that was optional to take) that would have helped me understand everything we were doing in this course better. There’s also the fact that I just felt so behind the others. Everyone had had so much lab experience before hand, either through co-op or through taking multiple chemistry/ biology courses that had a lab component with them. I had only a hand full of lab experience, majority of them were first year and one second year course with a lab.
I don’t regret taking this course. I can brag to people that I performed a CRISPR-Cas9 experiment, even though I got terrible results, I still did it! I would highly recommend taking any lab course you can when you’re in undergrad. especially when those courses are related to the field you want to go into. It may be hard, but it’s an experience any student should go through.
Noemi’s Corner 