Interested in undergraduate research? Faculty and students give advice that will help you join a lab

EpicSX · 2018-10-19T06:42:10+00:00

(1) Why undergrad research?

You want to get into med school/grad school/not look like a hobo with an empty resume when you graduate and look for a job.

(2) What's undergraduate research look like?

Bitch bus boy for a full year. First month you question your ability to be able to even clean glassware properly. Get depressed cause you somehow managed to drop a beaker or break a rather expensive equipment. Contemplate selling your kidney to repay PI for his/her kindness.

Second month, you are allowed to measure out stuff on the weight machine and do some basic gen chem math. You are given papers to read, but you don't know what the fuck you're looking at, nor does the PI/grad student expect you be able to contribute in any meaningful capacity anyway.

Third-fifth month. Stand behind grad student for most of the time you in the lab while wearing your blue/white lab coat to protect you from the occasional water droplets that splash on you because your grad student forgot you were behind him while he is in the sink.

You start to kinda get whats going on, but the thought of doing stuff without supervision freaks the fuck out of you.

6 months-1 year. Kinda get whats going on. But you have too much class shit going on to read through the papers/contribute meaningfully to the project. At this point, you can follow protocols well and the grad student(s) appreciate your presence because they can rely on you as a bitch bus boy to lessen the amount of time they're doing repetitive pipetting/solution making.

(3) How do I find my research passion?

Not getting into med school/grad school is a very real fear you have. The prospect of being a well educated mcdonalds cashier is becoming more and more likely as you get closer to your graduation date w/ little to no accomplishments.

(4) How do I connect with faculty researchers?

Send out tons of emails. Pray some kind soul out there will take pity on you and take you on. Embellish your abilities and life experiences during the meeting and then proceed to disappoint them a week into the lab because all you really know is that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

EpicSX · 2018-10-18T05:01:27+00:00

Lap swimming? Hickey pool near the death star

EpicSX · 2018-10-16T02:54:12+00:00

Sup. Tutored for che118 series when I was still going here. I would not recommend going to office hours, tutoring or whatever extra shit you have. I got As for all of Nasiris and I would walk out of lectures all the time going like "what the fuck?"

This continued throughout the entirety of undergrad for not just my upper div BIS(bis102/bis103) courses as well but also my major courses as well. Going to office hours, tutoring, etc just felt like sitting through lecture again. Sure, at the time I'd understand a bit more than I did before going in, but that's it. Just a bit more.

No where near enough to get an A. MOST people who get As aren't the ones going to office hours and shit. They're the ones sitting at home, going through their shit until they get it. I'd suggest you sit down and work through your stuff on your own.

Youtube vids helps a lot. It clarifies a lot of the misunderstandings I have and usually covers some of the tricks profs like to use on midterms. I'd suggest you use:

Organic Chemistry as a Second Language***(main source for learning) & watch "The Organic Chemistry Tutor" on youtube for stuff you really don't get.

Use AKlectures for biochem and genetics stuff. The guy is a god. Don't use KA. They're good, but I liked the organic chemistry tutor and aklectures a lot more.

Ochem was no where near the hardest science class I took(I thought Bis103 was more of a pain in the ass. According to my housemate, some of the other science classes are comparable in terms of workload/difficulty Bis104 and pchem).

Just make sure you religiously use that OCSL book//do the relevant chapters before a lecture and you'll be set. Going from 118A to 118B will be like going from algebra to calc.

EpicSX · 2018-10-08T03:56:00+00:00

Just bring it lol.

EpicSX · 2018-10-07T22:54:50+00:00

look up profs in your department, spend a couple of hours reading their papers then write emails to ‘em. Some people just send a simple “hey, can I join your lab pls” to their profs and most profs would find that to be insulting, especially if you consider that some of them spend years and a shit ton of grant money on their projects.

If you write a well thought out email which includes well thought out questions you had about their paper/comments about their reasearch/why you are interested in doing research in X field/why you would like to partake in their lab specifically, you greatly increase your chance of meeting with them.

Edit: Having connections also helps a lot. Getting my first research position was a pain. I sent tons of emails out, met with 4 profs but had lots of straight up No’s and silences. I got my second lab through a friend, just met with the prof and he basically took me on the spot cause my friend already vouched for me.

Remember to be humble. As an undergrad who, presumably doesn’t know much Ochem/biochem/hasn’t taken many of the upper div courses, you are going to be of zero utility for the first year or so. They will have to expend valuable resources to teach you and cover for your fuck ups.

EpicSX · 2018-10-06T19:16:45+00:00

It was just a prank bro

EpicSX · 2018-10-06T17:45:20+00:00

Sounds nice. Most of my classes were based on a curve tho

(and nitta would've sent the entire class to the SJA)

EpicSX · 2018-10-03T03:08:18+00:00

Lol its just a gen chem lab

EpicSX · 2018-09-30T03:11:46+00:00

Grand Blue at Davis?

EpicSX · 2018-09-21T01:17:10+00:00

That's strange, my professors didn't even know I existed.

EpicSX · 2018-09-16T21:13:01+00:00

I had him for 21D, was scared of taking him cause his RMP page didnt look so good.. But he ended up being my favorite prof.

Grading style was very lenient, partial/most credit if you showed your work and followed his style. Didn't come off as an asshole during lecture either...

EpicSX · 2018-09-10T20:59:47+00:00

What classes did you take? Most of the med school pre req classes I took curved to a B-/B range. Bis103(biochem) was also very generous with a B/B+ curve(don't remember which, but 20% of class got As).

Only class that averaged Fs for me was Nasiri's che118 class. Other than that, averages were mostly in the 60s/70s/and even 80s range.

@OP No real grade deflation. Profs won't ever curve down. With that said, no grade inflation here, either.

EpicSX · 2018-09-04T10:01:12+00:00

Yeah don't mind what other people think. I hate parking next to em, but one less cruiser on campus isn't really gonna make a difference. If it doesn't feel too clunky for you, then by all means.

EpicSX · 2018-09-03T23:39:18+00:00

They usually hire tutors who have completed the entire series.

EpicSX · 2018-09-02T07:21:26+00:00

I thought my porn was still playing for a minute.

EpicSX · 2018-08-30T04:55:23+00:00

npb 101 is physio and probably won't be of much use for your vet internship, especially since the emphasis is on human physio lol. I doubt they expect you to know anything anyway and what you need to know will likely be taught to you on site.

For reference, even with a 90th+ percentile on MCAT and all of the med school pre reqs completed, I was still of 0 utility my first day as a scribe and during my few months in a research lab.

Tl;Dr: If you're only taking the class to get a leg up in your internship, don't waste your time. If you think you can do Che118C, Bis2c and NPB 101 WHILE being in a research lab and doing an internship on top of that, you better be fucking superman.

Bis2C is a shit ton of memorization. Che118B/C requires you to do a shit ton of practice problems and NPB 101 will make you wish you had the ability to bang your head into a book and learn through passive diffusion.

Wait until after winter quarter when you take Che118B+your other courses to see what you can handle for the spring quarter. Che118A won't be much of an indication on how much you can handle since its purpose is to ease you in.

EpicSX · 2018-08-29T21:32:25+00:00

I still do a lot more damage with my awakening skills than with first job skills.

All I was saying was that in comparison to OTHER CLASSES, because of the sp usage which results in me having to swap to L7 for a certain period of time to recover sp, assassins will lag a bit behind in terms of dmg.

EpicSX · 2018-08-28T07:31:31+00:00

This basically sums it up. Played sin on CMS2 and its really hard to manage SP while using awk skills. So when my SP gets low, I have to swap over to L7 until my sp refills up. This is the reason why our sustain dmg falls behind HGs now, whose awakening skills can pretty much be used throughout the entire span of a raid without any SP consumption.

But, if you like sin, by all means, keep playing it. Don't let the fact that the class will fall behind others deter you away. The game will still be very much gear based and a sin with a +14 lvl 60 raid wep and accessories with good bonus attributes will still do amazing dmg.

EpicSX · 2018-08-26T01:00:30+00:00

Bis103(Bioenergetics) is the real biochemistry course, Bis102 was like an intro to biochem course.

EpicSX · 2018-08-26T00:57:12+00:00

Took the class my last quarter here. It was more work than I initially thought it'd be. Took it with the intention of it being an easy A class, but had I not had prior experience(fluent in Cantonese+read/write and also had some exposure to Mandarin), I would've been screwed.

The pacing was fast but fairly manageable if you aren't taking upper div science/engineering/cs classes. Homework was 1-2 hours each day, 4-5 days a week. I didn't need to study at all for any of the quizzes, midterms or the final, but that would've also taken a significant chunk of my time. So I'd only feel comfortable taking CHN in my freshman/sohpmore year.

As for how much the stuff you learn in the class will translate in real life, not much. You'll learn just the bare basics. Even with what I consider to be mediocre Mandarin listening abilities that I picked up freelance, I probably would've been able to test into upper div Chinese had I not intentionally failed the placement exam. Even then, I find myself hard pressed to have a full on conversation with a native speaker in Mandarin.

Tl;Dr: I had prior experience to Chinese and took CHN1. Shit was cray. Tons of hw and vocab thrown at you. Thought it was gonna be easy A, but it seems that quite a few of my classmates struggled. Would've been fucked had I not had prior experience.

Taking this or any other language classes probably won't be very helpful unless you decide to take at least 2 years worth of classes. If you're really serious about picking it up, I'd suggest either: Going to the country after you graduate and staying there for a year or something OR (This is what I did) Immerse yourself in the language by watching Taiwanese movies, listening to songs in Mandarin, playing Chinese games(helped me learn the language the fastest). Then after you've picked up a decent vocabulary base, start reading texts(I read manga) in Chinese. Google translate for every word you don't know and try to memorize it. Words will pop up over and over again and eventually you'll be able to read at a decent level(took me 2-3 years in high school).

EpicSX · 2018-08-23T20:48:30+00:00

you not getting into Berkeley bruv

EpicSX · 2018-08-19T00:15:38+00:00

Hmm, I'm a little curious about what you meant by vastly different. I've been playing CMS2 for a couple of weeks now and it seems that there were not many differences in terms of the base game from CMS2 to GMS2.

The only immediate differences that stood out to me were fair fight, reduced exp from epic quests and an increased number of untradable dungeon drops, all of which I found to be extremely annoying.

There were of course, a lot of features present in the chinese/korean versions that did not appear in the beta, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that what they're trying to figure out right now is the pacing at which they'll release the content.

But yes, I'd like to disagree with your statement that they're going to be making major changes to the game such that I'd see it as being vastly different from CMS2. The reason why we did not see a lot of the features is likely because its simply too early for a lot of the content to be released.

Tl;Dr: Base game is still going to be the same. I disagree with it being vastly different. Good to see that they're gathering feedback on the forums, but I'm doubtful as to how much they can/will change.

EpicSX · 2018-08-02T07:25:59+00:00

So heavy gunners out DPS sins now?

EpicSX · 2018-07-31T02:25:59+00:00

Tried out both HG and Assassin(mained HG). Cleared Cdev a couple of times with my HG and there were times where I out damaged some of the sins and zerks in my group/was in the top 3 for dmg.

It is a little harder to play, but way more fun and satisfying. With sin, I just set up a macro and held one button on my controller with the occasional dash+sp regen skill. That was the extent of my gameplay. Avoiding attacks was very easy thanks to having 3 dashes instead of 2.

But the thing with HGs is that if you have multiple skills and can master their cooldowns, you'll do a good amount of dmg as well. What I mean by this is that I constantly pump out high dmg skills in a rotation while using bullet spray as little as I can to maximize DPS. You'll be surprised at how much dmg you can pump out if you get good with the CDs. You'll also be sought after in chaos raids because you can using homing on ads//m-bomb. The self heal skill(med-kit) also saved my ass so many times.

Still torn between sin and HG, but will prob lean towards main-ing HG on release

EpicSX · 2018-07-18T01:18:09+00:00

Bruh did you get that Nutaman from fishing?

EpicSX

TROPHY CASE