This past week at Princeton University was an eye opener for me. My first thoughts when coming to a lab like this was based on the stereotype of research scientists by profession; brilliant, polite but not warm, and seemingly in another world.
I was proved wrong within an hour. My Principal Investigator, Joshua Shaevitz, walked towards me and greeted me with a warm smile and engaged me in a short conversation about my sporting ambitions. Who would have thought? When we walked into the lab, I met with the other members of the lab, one of which asked me if I wanted anything specific to eat for lab meeting that day.
Lab meeting was a fun experience, the Shaevitz Lab and another lab have a joint gathering in a conference room where graduate students as well as undergraduate students present their work to the post-docs. Now that's a tough crowd. Though I was lost within 10 minutes of each presentation, and even more so when questions were asked, I enjoyed it; I felt somewhat smarter, maybe just by diffusion.
Over the next couple days I was shown the data analysis equipment that I would use in a few weeks, because right now we are in the data collection phase of the experiment. Also, there was a bomb threat, to add some drama.
To end the week, I had to sit through a 3 hour safety training lecture, which I can't say was exhilarating, but it was definitely necessary. In week 2 I will begin working with the moth samples.
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