A Letter to Your Future Self – Zara Bedella

Dear Future Zara,

I’ve just started my summer research through the Women and Gender Summer Fellowship Program! In the few days I’ve had so far, I have already learned so many new skills and gained a lot of new experiences. Though I did research during the school year just a few months ago, this research is very different, both in topic and in the number of hours spent. During the academic year, I never spent more than three hours at a time working on my research, but now I am working 30 hours a week on this project. I was also nervous at first because this is the first lab I have worked in, but every day I get the hang of it a little bit more.

I think a challenge I have faced is that you cannot be afraid to ask questions when you are unsure (which is a LOT in the beginning). The experiments and protocols and machines can be a little overwhelming at first with how new everything is, but asking questions helps a lot, and you start to figure everything out. However, I think a strength I bring into the project is that I am determined to learn as much as I can.

I hope by the end of the summer I will be able to explain my research project easily at the poster presentation, and I think I will become more comfortable moving around the lab and working on a variety of different experiments. Though the topic of my project is new to me, I am very excited to keep learning more, and will keep applying my past experience in biology lecture and lab classes to make sure I’m putting out my best work. To my future self, I hope you look back on this blog post and think of how far you have come on your project since now, and how much you have enjoyed it!

From,
Zara