Halfway Point

In order to get the most out of the best things in life, you have to work for it and sweat for it...maybe then you'll deserve it. It's the same thing in this internship. Through sheer luck, serendipity, and providence I secured an internship in one of the only labs that gives its interns a relative amount of freedom to learn through scientific experimentation and not by cleaning petri dishes. Thus, I will have to draw on all of my laboratory knowledge to be able to use all the various apparati and equipment appropriately.

This is one of the truest forms of project-based learning. The interns have to do research themselves--fly solo--and accomplish many things over the course of the summer with their self-motivation and ability. There are two interns here who ended up in the lab through the Hughes Program, and one through the SURF program. They all say that their friends in the other labs are mere assistants and not the main experimenters like we get to be in Dr. Deheyn's lab. It is a very amazing (and very intimidating) prospect. I was fortunate enough to have done some biotechnology and engineering in Honors Biology last year, so I know how to at least use pipettes. Otherwise, it's all about asking questions and taking good notes. There are some "old-timers" in the lab (old-timers to me) who have been working on various projects for almost a year. Jenny knows where everything is and how to use most of the equipment and Zach....well, in between getting angry at his gels and always playing heavy metal (which one gets used to) he can be pretty entertaining and a good source of intelligent discussion. But they both get in "early" around 8:30 or 9 in the morning, though any big questions I have get answered at 10am or later when my mentor gets in.

I know that this internship can really be a place for me to increase my knowledge of biology and understanding of life in a research laboratory. Yet, though it may be a challenge, at least I have room to grow rather than just time to clean other scientists' petri dishes.

The View!

Day 0

It's the dream internship for any kid of any age. Imagine: right above Scripps Pier, studying light and bio-luminescence in macro marine organisms (the big stuff that you can see), learning about what lives in the oceans we know and love, and gaining experience and insight for the future at the same time. And it's mine this summer.

I'll be working with Dr. Dimitri Deheyn in the Marine Biology Research Department of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography for the whole summer. I'll be volunteering alongside him, graduate, and undergraduate students, and of course the macro marine organisms that glow and reflect and are amazing and alive....that is, until we dissect them. But that's beside the point. The point is that they are and we are able to study them and discover what makes them do what they do--the conditions, the chemicals, the very essence of what makes them tick. In the least, we can observe them. And what greater feat of mother nature can there be than these creatures that imitate the life force of earth and the solar system--the sun! in all its shining glory. These organisms shine and reflect in order to reproduce or defend themselves, perhaps even lure prey or communicate. There is light not only in the heavens, but beneath the seas.

And there's also light inside us, passion waiting to be ignited, sparked by curiosity and an insatiable thirst for knowledge. It is, perhaps, the brightest light on earth--that light inside our minds--for that fire inside humankind has driven us to do many great things and discover our potential. And when we realize our potential and the fact that it has no limits or bounds, then we can truly do anything.