Hi everyone! Short disclaimer: I’m writing this in a woefully uncaffeinated state, so beware of the word vomit to follow. Anyways, welcome to my blog post! So far, my time at SSP has been incredible, chaotic, occasionally bewildering, and very, very informative. I thought IB Bio was comprehensive, but boy was I wrong. I think our first few lectures covered more in 30 minutes than my biology class did in 3 months. I love it! As I am writing this, I am waiting for our SDS-PAGE to run. Somehow I was able to finish the infamous (sorry Grace, I’m stealing your word) Assignment 2 last night after hours of questioning all of my life choices, so blog time it is! Even though we only started Assignment 2 two nights ago, it feels like months. That’s how fast time goes here. Speaking of time, I have a very serious complaint to lodge against the Starbucks near our dorms, which is only open from 8am to 3pm (while we are in labs/lectures) and closed on weekends. It’s honestly criminal. Also, while we’re on the topic of food/consumables, DO NOT look up the ingredient lists for the food at Wiley if you don’t want to be overcome with nausea at 7:30am. I made that mistake with my eggs this morning. Spoiler alert: the eggs are not just eggs.
Other than the questionable food offerings (thank goodness for lunch at the Union), everything about SSP is amazing. All the people here are insanely nice and extremely patient, and it’s not hard at all to find someone to sit down for ten minutes to walk you through how to create elusive primer sequences. Multiple times. Shout out to Maya, Payton, Della, Julia, Brian, Diego, Cory, the TAs, Dr. Hall, Dr. Das, and all the other people I’m forgetting (there are a lot) for being literal angels and taking the time to help me understand everything from how to copy a nucleotide sequence on Windows and title a Word Doc (I’m a Google Docs person) to figuring out where to put my plasmids and how to use the many, many unfamiliar software programs that I’m sure will result in multiple sleepless nights in the future. Also shout out to my lab partners, Sai and Sehyun, for being very efficient pipettors and awesome in general. Woo!
My favorite thing so far about SSP has been the amount of time we get to spend in the lab. It’s insane that we’re actually using techniques and carrying out experiments that I have only ever learned about in textbooks. This morning we prepared our induced cells for SDS-PAGE by doing things such as using the sonicator, which sounds like a thousand cats dying, and this afternoon we’re running the gel. Loading the gel went smoothly, so hopefully we did everything else right! We also learned more about using MOE today, which was…okay. Having never used any similar software I was definitely out of my comfort zone, but I think I’m getting there! I’m glad I’m being forced to familiarize myself with MOE and other software like it, because I think it will definitely be an important skill to have in the future. Going forward, I’m so excited to learn more new things and to improve my skills both in the lab and on the computer. This is such an incredible opportunity, and I’m so happy to have so many amazing people to experience it with!
Hi everyone!! I’m Kyra, and I’m a rising senior from New York City. During the school year, I run a UNICEF club and a science club, compete on the Mock Trial and math teams, tutor, and intern at a plastic surgeon’s office. I also started my own peer tutoring platform, Tutorpeers, which you should definitely go check out at tutorpeers.com ! In my free time, I love to play squash (the sport, not the vegetable), do crossword puzzles, read, and watch Grey’s Anatomy.
