Expectations |
Expectations |
Before the experience, I thought...Disease research involved working at a lab and growing cell cultures and testing them in order to learn more about the disease. I thought it would be similar to TV shows where the researcher would spend a lot of time of day looking through microscopes and observing the disease's effect on cells.
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From an educational standpoint, I thought I would...Have a deeper understanding of what research is like and also understand the mechanisms of how viruses infect the body and causes symptoms. Through my research experience this summer, I learned a lot more about diseases and the human body that I would not have learned in school. I hope the research skills that I learned will help me in college.
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I really wanted to learn about...
After reading the book Microbe, I got very interested in infectious diseases because it was fascinating to me how the diseases spread and how it causes harm to our bodies. I needed to pick a disease to research and understand deeply. I chose to learn more about Enterovirus 71 because it is a disease that has caused many severe outbreaks in the Asia-Pacific region, especially in Taiwan which is where I am from.
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I was able to meet and work with...Several smart people from a lot of different high schools. I really enjoyed meeting a lot of students around my age who all have a passion in conducting scientific research. I enjoyed having class with them and talking to them about our future goals and plans. Not only are the student researchers very wonderful, all the mentors are also extremely helpful in guiding us through our disease research projects. Another group of people that I had the opportunity to meet are the doctors and researchers that came in to share their experiences. As a part of my research project, I interviewed Dr. Mejias about her experience on researching about respiratory diseases caused by RNA viruses.
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