Grading Endless Papers!

So as a TA, I was given the responsibility of grading 100 quizzes! These quizzes have been such a pain to grade and it's a shame that this is how I am spending the first minutes of my bday : ( I'm so tired and have so much to accomplish this week, including a test on Thursday. I have to present a review on a journal article tomorrow for lab meeting. Didn't even have time to study for my exam today. I'm celebrating my bday on Thursday because of my exam Thursday...blah blah blah Moral of the story: I need a break before I go insane!!!!!!!!! Updates: 12:27a (10/7 aka my bday): why can't college students write their names legibly!! and how do you forget to put your name on your paper...*SMH*...

Read More

My First Lecture!

So as a graduate student, I am required to be a teacher's assistant (TA) for one of my advisor's classes. When I did this last year, I was only required to really help out with the labs, grade papers, and the lectures were done by the professor. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I was sent an urgent email saying that my advisor was going out of town and he needed someone to teach his class...2 days later! The senior graduate students in my lab were going to be busy, so guess who got slammed with the responsibility...yes, MOI! Little ol' me that shies away from public speaking at all costs (especially in front of large audiences)! Well, I had no choice really, so I sucked it up and confirmed with my advisor that I'd be able to teach is 100 student class! He sent me a copy of his notes for the class,...

Read More

I passed!!!

All I can say is Thank You Jesus!! I passed my Ph.D. qualifying exam on Monday and now I am an official Ph.D. Candidate!! Woohooooo!! : ) So there were three faculty members on my qualifying exam committee, all of whom I had never had a conversation/class with before. When I met them in the room, they seemed to be friendly, so that put me at ease before I started presenting. I must say though that the third committee member was VERY TARDY! I was supposed to start presenting at 1pm, but didn't get to that till about 1:30p!!My presentation was about 30 min. long and I was too excited about using my newly purchased laser pointer that day, lol! I was also loving the fact that I could advance my powerpoint slides using my macbook remote. Yay for Apple! : ) After my presentation, the "grilling"...

Read More

Get Me Through This Lord!!

So the oral portion of my Ph.D. qualifier's exam is this upcoming Monday. Every time I think about it, my heart literally starts to beat faster and I get this queasy feeling in my stomach. In fact, last night I only got 1 hr of sleep (not because I was up late studying), but because I'm so anxious about this exam that its robbing both my AM and PM hours = MY LIFE!! Have you ever felt so overwhelmed that you're discouraged to study something even before you've picked up the book. There is just so much material and so little time and I really am trying not to psych myself out. My friends and family keep telling me that they know I'm going to do just fine. My question is...why don't I feel that way right now? Sometimes, I think that the intensity of this whole process is lost on someone who hasn't...

Read More

Memorial Day

So... it really is not cool to be celebrating memorial day by yourself, at home, writing your proposal for your PhD qualifier's exam. I just thought I should let that be known! *sigh* Hopefully I can finish it before the NBA playoffs game comes on tonight between the Lakers and Denver. We shall see...

Read More

1st Year is Behind Me!!

Wow! I can't believe that my first year in graduate school has been completed. Through all the hyperventilation of "I wish I accepted that job offer!", "What in the world have I gotten myself into!", "Am I really capable of handling all this"...my first year has gone by and I feel like I've actually learned a significant amount of information! I have to attribute all of this to God because He was truly the source of my strength at time when I felt my weakest.Now I must continue my preparations for the Ph.D. qualifier's examination this summer. I have to turn in a written proposal and go through an hour and a half oral defense regarding my submitted proposal. Talk about nerve-wrecking! However, I know that the same God that brought me through my first year of grad school will take me through...

Read More

I'm an NSF Fellow!!!

I just had to share the great news. I am now officially a National Science Foundation Fellow! I received news this past weekend that I was awarded the fellowship which is considered a great honor for graduate students and also comes with a much improved stipend : ) I immediately thanked God when I read the news! In fact, I had to reread the email a couple times to make sure I a) wasn't half-dreaming b) wasn't misreading and that I had actually been given honorable mention status, lol. So with that, I'm feeling a bit more motivated as this semester from down under winds down (interesting how the workload simultaneously "winds up" exponentially!). This motivation is much needed as I have a mock NIH proposal due in class tomorrow. It's not finished yet..but we're getting there :...

Read More

Encouraging article for those good ole PhD students

A short article that I found a bit encouraging today after feeling like how the above graph (from PhD Comics) illustrates..."PhD...What They Don't Tell Yo...

Read More

Welcome to Research!

This is definitely one phrase I'm starting to get weary of hearing! Let me give you some of examples of where it has come up:Case 1Me: Wait, was I supposed to use the distilled PEG to mix with the MeCl??Labmate: Yea, sorry I didn't make that too clear in the protocolMe: Oh goodness...now I'm going to have to redistill my solution and start back at step 2. 4 hours of work down the drain!Labmate: Welcome to research! : )Case 2 Me: These gels are taking a bit long to form, how long do they usually take you?Labmate: Oh about 10-15 minutesMe: Really?? Mine take like 30-40 minutesLabmate: Well are you making new initiator solution for every polymerization?Me: Umm, no. No one told me about that. I thought you could make a batch and it would last you several days. That means I'm going to have to redo...

Read More

Innovation is Key!

So one thing I've learned about the major differences between graduate and undergraduate training is how they train you to think. In my undergraduate career, we were expected to study the information presented and demonstrate that understanding by doing homework sets and answering questions on exams...all of which the answers were already known by the professor. In graduate school, particularly for the PhD, you are still presented with information, but with that information you are expected to use it in a way to solve problems that currently do not have a solution known by anyone! This means that in order to solve these types of problems, you also have to approach them in ways that haven't been tried before in order to yield new information.I must say that this is one of the areas that has...

Read More

One semester down!!

Well well well...Fall 2008 has past and I'm now in the midst of the Spring 2009 semester. I can't believe how much material was covered last semester and how much of it I understood by the end of the semester! That was a miracle. I really enjoyed working in the biomedical engineering (BME) lab last semester. Definitely picked up some useful skills for my research including polymer synthesis, reading journal articles critically, hydrogel (polymers that absorb water) degradation studies, presenting research for lab meetings and a ton of other things! I also had the "wonderful" experience of applying for a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. It will only have been a wonderful experience if I am awarded the fellowship because boy was preparing that application a project in itself!...

Read More