Introduction: With a stay at home order in place here in Minnesota, we are no longer able to have classes in person. We still have classes to attend which we do through Zoom. Every week we have Zoom meetings with our research stream as well as the peer mentor we are assigned to for the week. Each assignment is designed to help us with our research when we are able to continue with it. This week, we have been working on reading scientific papers.
RISEbio Content: Last week, we were assigned to working on reading through a scientific paper. We specifically worked on understanding what the paper was about and any areas we did not understand. The paper we read was about different cancers and which ones affect men and women the most in Southern India. With the help of Courtney, we were able to understand the bulk of the assignment and what to look for. This week we will be continuing on with reading through scientific papers. We will be focusing more on understanding the methods and materials of a scientific paper. We will be working closely with Courtney to make sure we have a grasp on what we are reading. After this week, it will be finals week, and we will not be meeting with the entire stream. We hope it will be a good end to the semester and the first year of college for us.
COVID Content: As the semester has continued, my procrastination habits have gone down. It is still difficult most days to motivate myself to do notes, homework, classwork, etc. because no one is here to really hold me accountable. I’ve tried to keep everything updated in my planner like I did earlier in the semester. It has been difficult for me personally. I don’t learn well with an online format which has been the biggest struggle overall. I’m a very hands on learner, so learning everything online where I can’t do it myself in a lab setting has been a difficult transition. As for outside of school and homework, my family has started baking a lot more and spending more time together as a family. We weren’t able to when my twin brother, Matt, and I were always at school . My biggest concern with life after the stay at home is over is whether or not we will be allowed on campus for Fall 2020. It’s difficult taking science classes and doing everything online rather than face to face with a professor. My biggest concern outside of school is what will life look like when everything is done? I have a feeling it will take a year or two before things in the real world truly go back to normal such as grocery shopping, doctor appointments, dentist appointments, etc. My biggest hope is that we can continue our research in the lab when fall semester begins. I miss the lab and everyone more than I expected myself to. – Grace Bromann
While the semester has been dwindling down to the last couple of weeks, I have just now learned that I hate online learning. It is not how I learn and I really struggled with keeping up and still having free time. Fortunately, however, I have been able to keep my GPA up and to my standards so that is the good thing in all of this, even though I am not totally sure how I kept that up. Anyway, I really hope that things are kind of back to normal in that I will actually physically be able to attend lectures and have study groups in person with everyone. Something to hope for and look forward to this fall. -Makenna Berger
Conclusion: With these changes and needing to adapt, we are still able to continue with our research and further our education. We have learned to adapt to these changes as well as everyone else in our research stream. With the semester coming to an end, we are working hard to end the semester on a good note. In the fall, we hope to continue with our research and be able to present it to others.
