From staying up late submitting problem sets with my group, to the occasional dance break in the middle of TA block, or even the fun and exciting campus blocks in the morning, SSP has been an incredible experience so far. I’ve learned much more than just biochemistry concepts, and, as seen in Figure 1, have even discovered how terrible at online drawing I am.
Figure 1: A penguin fighting me in a boxing ring. Yes, that really was the first thing that came to my mind…
Other than drawing really weird images or jamming out with my saxophone during campus block, I’ve really enjoyed meeting all the people at SSP, as well as bonding with my group, “The Tryptophan Treblemaking Trio”.
Figure 2: The Tryptophan Treblemaking Trio Zoom sessions.
It’s crazy that, in such a short amount of time, I feel as if I’ve known my group members for ages. We’ve practiced countless accents with each other, created an entire story about “a knight named Sir Jonathan Chen”, and sometimes joke around a bit too much… I’ve learned that Jonathan’s favorite phrases are “that’s awesome” and “exactly”, and that Audrey is really good at British accents and singing. Some great clutches and funny accidents have also been made between Jonathan, Rishabh, Alex and I while playing bed wars non-stop between 12-2 A.M.
Besides fooling around a lot, my group and I have had some great learning moments and have exchanged some of our hobbies such as listening to K-pop, jazz, or playing tennis. My favorite class activity during SSP so far has been the one that involved organic chemistry. I got the chance to share my interest in this subject with my groupmates, and in the end, we created an entire mechanism for the CDC14 catalyzed reaction which can be seen in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Mechanism of enzyme catalysis we made for class activity 12.
In closing, SSP has been a tremendous experience thus far, and there’s way too much information to include in just one blog entry. I’m excited to continue the program and can’t wait for what’s next!
