Why I Spent My Summer Interning at a Research Lab

This summer went by quickly as I spent it to explore my interests and think about what I would really like to study about in the near future.

Before moving to the states, I wanted to study cell biology (which explains the name of this blog) and eventually do some kind of research related to cancer. Yes. That was how clueless I was about my future.

At my old school, which offered IB diploma, I was faced with a choice between taking biology OR physics. I was going to take chemistry anyway, as it was my favorite subject, so I had to make a choice between the other two sciences.

This is me talking about my chemistry textbook in my TEDx talk.
This is how much I like chemistry.

As a kid I was never good at mathematics (I wasn’t exactly bad at it, but there was always another kid better than me). When faced with a choice to make, I thought of physics as the science related with a lot of math. Since I math was not my passion, I ended up choosing biology over physics.

(Not that I regret the choice – I love biology, I love all the three big areas of science, but I do wish I had taken physics a little earlier.)

When I moved to the states, however, I was introduced to Advanced Placement and I was very glad that I could take all the three sciences + calculus.

I was not planning to take calculus, but since I was taking it, I wanted to make use of the college calculus credit I would be earning in high school.

And so I looked it up and decided to become a chemical engineer.

I’m joking. There obviously was much more to it. But that was how I got interested in the field of engineering… in general. I did not know that engineering had so many subfields in it, so this summer I decided to explore a couple of them. I did my research and shortened my list to two fields of engineering that really sparked my interest: biomedical engineering and chemical engineering.

Instead of going to workshops exclusively for high school students, I wanted to try something different. I wanted to challenge myself with a whole other level of responsibility (!).

And so I decided to work as a non-paid intern at a college. It was an outrageous idea as I think about it now – I was a high school sophomore with only one AP credit (which is psychology… quite far from engineering) and zero experience of working at a college research lab. Plus my parents aren’t doctors or professors.

I was nervous and afraid when I emailed several professors from the colleges within Alabama. Weeks passed and not a single email back from them. I was disappointed but I knew that it would not be easy.

And so I took the longest time and the most effort to carefully type down my final email.

The email I sent to the professor to request for volunteer opportunity in his lab

This was the lab I most wanted to work in, so I was close to screaming and jumping around my house when I got a reply from the professor in two hours.

p.s. I intended to go to two camps but I ended up not going to one, so my internship lasted seven weeks.

I was more than excited to spend my summer as a research intern. However, I was aware of the responsibility I would have to bear in order to work as a part of the team in the lab. I did not want to be babysat or be a nuisance to the team; I wanted to contribute even if it was the slightest, and I wanted to help as much as I learned from them.

Within the span of seven months, I will record my seven-week internship experience in this blog. I will include the important stuff such as the skills and concepts I have learned, as well as trivial stuff like what I had for lunch each day.

Spoiler alert: I decided to work in the same lab again next summer but this time I will come up with my own research topic too!