Reflective Essay

The Seminar in Biology course (BIOL 4997) helped me a lot in gaining both

practical and theoretical knowledge on how to do scientific research. Before the

course I have not done any research projects nor was familiar with a few lab

techniques. Now that I have completed the course work I have gained various tools

that will help me to achieve my academic and professional goals.

The first thing that I will like to mention is the practical part, the lab skills and

techniques I have learned. During the course we were introduced to various lab

techniques of which I hardly new. For example I could mention the phage isolation

workshop, in which we learned about aseptic technique and bacterial and phage

behavior. We also had workshops about electron microscopy, water analysis, solid

state synthesis and membranes. The big project for me was working with Dr. Vibha

Bansal, doing a mini research project which was called “Protein Separation Using

Magnetic Nanoparticles”. During this project I worked in the lab doing various

experimental procedures of which I knew very little or perhaps nothing. This makes

it a little hard at first but then further on as I gained knowledge of what I was doing I

felt more comfortable and proceeded with my project very well. Doing this project

helped me to learn about different lab techniques that will be very useful for my

academic and professional goals.

The theoretical part helped me to gain knowledge about scientific writing and how

to give presentations. Before the course I have never read a scientific paper, and I

have not written one. So it was a very helpful part because we had to write reports

about our projects, in which we learned the correct format, what to write and how to

use references in your work. Also from reading scientific papers we became

familiar with scientific literature, which is very important, being a science student.

With the oral presentations we learned how to correctly express our ideas so other

people can understand the ideas that we want to deliver. At the same time it

helped us with our language skills.

This course helped me a lot since it introduced me to a variety techniques and

topics in biology that amplified my knowledge. I am sure that the techniques and

skills I have acquired with this course will help me achieve my academic and

professional.