Lori Huang4th year BIOSC major and pre-med student I have a confession to make. I am a candle fiend. 90% of my desk is covered in candles and the Bath & Body Works employees at the Waterfront recognize me with a mask on. What better way to spend my Saturday afternoon than to visit Mix Candle Co. in Lawrenceville? Mix Candle Co. is a small shop where you can not only buy candles but make them yourself. Once you enter the store, your eyes are immediately drawn to the left wall, which is equipped with shelves upon shelves of sample candles. Each sample candle has been infused with a different scent, from gardenia to cashmere to even bacon. This is where you will sniff each sample to select which scents you want in your candle. Once you’ve exhausted your nose, you can head over to the Fragrance Bar in the center of the store to begin crafting your custom candle. As you’re seated at the bar, the store’s Mixologists will guide you through the process of mixing your candle and recommend which fragrances from your list will form pleasant combinations. After you’ve finished selecting your scent profile, the Mixologists will provide you with the corresponding fragrance oils, which you will mix into hot, liquid soy wax in a jar of your choice. From there, all you have to do is wait for the candles to solidify. While I was waiting for my verbena, sea kelp, and key lime pie concoction (I know it sounds strange, but it actually smelled amazing) to cool, I ventured outside of the store to walk around Lawrenceville. There are a lot of interesting businesses and restaurants to explore, so by the time you’re done breezing in and out of Lawrenceville’s unique stores, your candle will be ready. I had a great time sipping coffee while losing pinball games at the Kickback Pinball Café and sifting through the Pittsburgh-themed merchandise at the Wild Card gift shop. When you return to Mix Candle Co., you will be given your candle in a bright blue bag and, if you’re like me, immediately light it when you return home. Having burned through it pretty quickly (yes, I did burn it every day), I am eager to return to Mix Candle Co. and make another. If you’re not into candles, I still encourage you to take a break from studying and explore Pittsburgh! In such a wonderful and diverse city, I’m sure you’ll find something you’ll enjoy.
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Jacob FrenchmanBIOSC Senior and almost med student Hey everyone! It’s Jacob, one of the peer advisors. For this blog post, I had the opportunity to interview one of my favorite professors at Pitt, Dr. O’Reilly, about her experiences as a scientist and as a professor. As a freshman, I had Dr. O’Reilly for intro Bio 1 and 2, as a sophomore I TA’d for her intro Bio 1 and 2 classes, and as a junior I had her for biochemistry. Now as a senior I am taking her BIOSC 1010: Communicating in the Biological Sciences course. Remember - it is always a good idea to check in with your professors at office hours and get to know them. This is a great way to get to know them, TA for them, have them co-sponsor your research, and maybe write some letters of rec one day. Jacob: What did you study in college? Why did you study it? Dr. O’Reilly: I completed my undergraduate degree in industrial biology because I wanted to work at Pfizer. But, as part of my degree, I was required to do a job placement where I relocated to the NIH with my friend for 6 months to study RNA polymerase. Working at the NIH is where I realized my love for biochemistry. Originally, I wanted to do molecular biology because I believed that biochemistry was too old school. However, my professor, Paul Engel’s passion for genetic diseases caused by protein deficiencies motivated me to begin studying fatty acid metabolism. I was so fascinated by how studying protein and kinetic data (biochemistry!) could make a significant difference in patient lives. So, I returned to school in Ireland to attain my PhD in biochemistry. Jacob: What led you to Pitt? Dr. O’Reilly: Growing up in Dublin, moving to Pittsburgh was not my lifelong dream. What brought me to Pittsburgh was my husband. He runs a lab at the medical school, so I started working in a lab as a postdoc in a different lab at the medical school studying molecular genetics. Initially, my dream was to lead my own lab at the medical school. However, I transitioned into a senior scientist role at a lab at the children’s hospital looking to repurpose drugs to treat diseases in children. When my boss was recruited to Washington University in St. Louis, I found myself at a crossroads: Should I start a new challenge or a new lab? As a postdoc, I always loved working with the younger students in the lab, it was my favorite part of the job. While I loved research and hoped to someday help people through science, teaching presented me with an opportunity for more direct impact on others. So, I decided to start teaching the communication in the biological sciences class which was only 16 students. Soon after, I started teaching full-time and began teaching the big lectures classes of over 300 students, which was a huge change for me! Jacob: Are you currently still doing research? Dr. O’Reilly: I have a funded project from the provost office to learn about peer-teaching. Every week some of my students create a short teaching video (3 minutes, 1 per semester per student) and then two people peer-review two videos per week. We are trying to see if students will learn better when they are actually reviewing material and not just passively listening to lecture. The lecturers don’t do bench research anymore, but we are all doing funded work to try and improve education. We want to help our students learn as best as they possibly can, so we meet weekly to discuss the latest research on how to best help students learn. This is especially important in our current time because the pandemic has exacerbated disparities in high-school education. We want to get all our students at the same level. Jacob: What is your favorite class to teach? Dr. O’Reilly: I really enjoy teaching foundations of biology because I can meet students when they are freshman and hopefully get them excited to study biology and become scientists. I love teaching biochemistry because it is my favorite subject, and we can get more in-depth with human diseases which I find so fascinating. Also, the students in Biochemistry have an established foundation in biology, physiology, and chemistry so there is so much potential for critical-thinking and powerful connections. Honestly, I also really love communications in the biological sciences because it is student driven — they create the final material, and I am merely their editor. Jacob: What’s your Favorite part of teaching? Dr. O’Reilly: My favorite part is always meeting students and see them progress and mature. I love to see my students grow into independent learners and watch them become successful! This is largely why I really love the communications in biological sciences class because there is so much student discussion that allows me to develop relationships with my students. Even if in a large class, if we (the professors) can explain material in a way that makes sense to our students we can see the lightbulb go off and watch our students develop powerful connections for themselves. Teaching gives me the potential to reach a lot of people and (hopefully) get them all interested in biology! Even if I can’t get everyone excited in biology, I sincerely hope that by the end of Foundations 1 my students can analyze and do research for themselves. Jacob: What is the most challenging part of your job? Dr. O’Reilly: It is challenging having very large classes, with nearly 300 students in some classes. Luckily, I have a wonderful teaching team with UTAs and assistant instructors that help me. But with the sheer number of students, it can sometimes be a bit challenging. My students are so kind and understanding of the fact that we have so many students, so they are patient. Also, sometimes it can be challenging trying to reach everybody in the class. As instructors, we get worried that some students fall through the cracks which we try to never let happen. Jacob: What advice do you have for younger students who want to be bio majors/biologists? Dr. O’Reilly: The most important thing is developing good study habits. So many students come in and have huge dreams and aspirations. All of us, as instructors, want to see everyone hit those dreams. So, I would highly recommend reaching out to instructors to build reliable study habits, go to office hours, and use the study lab! It is essential to be realistic with yourself and identify when you are struggling so you can get help because we all really do want to see you succeed. Jacob: Lastly, what is your favorite thing about Pittsburgh? Dr. O’Reilly: I was very surprised when I first moved here that there is such a large and supportive Chinese community, which is very important for me especially because my children are bi-racial, and I want them to get that diverse experience and be part of the community. I really love doing Tai Chi, and this past weekend we went to the Asian lantern festival at the zoo to perform and watch our kids do kung fu there. It was a great opportunity to relax and do non-academia related things. Well, everyone, thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it! If you ever get a chance to take a class with Dr. O’Reilly, I highly recommend it! If you want to swap stories about your favorite professors (maybe who I should interview next?) or just want to talk about random stuff (maybe enrollment since that’s coming up this week?) feel free to swing by Madison and my office hours on Monday at 3-4 PM! Eric JordahlSenior CellDev major and pre-PhD student For many people, paying for your undergraduate or post-graduate education is one of the most stressful parts of furthering your education. Along with this, comes the stress of loans, and applying for other funding like scholarships, grants, and fellowships. As an undergraduate student who spends most of my time doing research in my lab, I am someone who has applied for many different fellowships and grants, so I was hoping to detail some of my experiences to all of you and offer some advice for those who may be applying soon. For most applications that involve funding related to research, programs want to assess your qualities as a prospective fellow in two main ways. The first is through your research interest and topic. This likely is demonstrated through the drafting of a research prospectus or research plan. Second, these programs want to see if you, as a researcher, are a good investment for these companies, departments, organizations, etc., to invest in. They will likely assess this in one of two ways, with a request for a “personal statement” or a list of prompted questions for you to answer. For many of these programs, they want to see that you as a researcher will not only produce strong data, but that you will use this funding to advance the field in which you are working in addition to yourself. I will detail each of these facets below in a bit more detail as well as include some more of my own experience. Drafting a Research Plan When applying for funding for your research, you want to make sure that your project is scientifically sound and ensure that it is relevant to ongoing research in the field. The best way to do this is to first talk to your scientific mentor. Whether this is your Principal Investigator (PI) or a mentor who sponsors you, they will be able to help keep your application competitive in your field, developing a strong outline on what research you can perform. Once you have a strong outline planned, you can begin your writing process. This can be different dependent on what you are applying for: smaller fellowship opportunities (like those from our Department of Biological Sciences or even just in the University), often require much less than those on the national scale. Some opportunities, like those in the university, are most likely to want a smaller research prospectus that focuses more on the importance of the research you are performing rather than the experiments themselves. Thus, it is important to include both a strong background and a significance section, so that any reviewer will be able to understand why your research is not only a good project to follow, but one that is good for the field. Larger opportunities are a bit more of a mixed bag. If you are applying to an opportunity provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF), it is especially important to focus on the experiments you plan to perform and how it will expand science, but maybe less on broader impacts like medicine. On the other hand, applying for an opportunity with the National Institute of Health (NIH), it is important to focus on how your research could work towards developments in public health or medicine. All in all, it is important to know your audience and what they find most impactful in an application. Most applications will include details of who to cater your plan towards, whether it be people in other sciences (Ex. Physics), people in a broad category of your research (ex. Biology), or experts in your field (Ex. Molecular Biology). Without paying attention to this, you may write a beautiful research plan in correct terminology for your field, but if it is being read by someone who has very limited knowledge of the base knowledge of the topic, it will be difficult for them to understand your plan. With this in mind, it is important to check this before writing your plan, or if you find out later, make sure to edit so that your reviewers can understand your plan, making them more willing to fund you! Developing a Personal Statement As I mentioned previously, the second portion for these types of applications is often to assess you as a person. This portion, to me, is the most daunting, and the most difficult to write. I am terrible at talking about myself, and prefer to focus on the work that I do, or the things I am involved in. However, this is not a great strategy for this portion of an application, unfortunately for me and many others. The best advice that I can offer for this is insanely cliché, BE YOURSELF. With these types of applications, the reviewers want to know you as a person, not the details about your life that they could gather from your CV or résumé. Of course, you want to brag about all that you have done and show them that you are a strong candidate for their program. But with this, you do not want to seem too prideful, so make sure to show humility. Do not be afraid to be vulnerable (to a degree), as it is okay to show some weakness and explain where you may have struggled. The path you took to get to the point at which you are at is the one you took, and the best thing for you to do is to own it. You may have made mistakes at one point, and that is okay, just show them how you got back up and found your groove again. Show them that you are resilient, and you will persevere through the hardships that stand ahead of you. Though all of what I just wrote may sound very “motivational speaker” -esque, it is something that can truly help your personal statement to stand out above the rest. If anyone has any questions, I am happy to discuss this at any time, as this journey is still ongoing for me as well, so maybe next time we talk I will have an updated perspective. You can reach me at my email [email protected] at any time, so don’t hesitate, even for the smallest of things! We have a great team of undergraduate Biology Peer Advisors ready to share their experiences in the BIOSC department and answer all of your questions about being a student at Pitt. This semester we have two great new peer advisors: Ward Liu Hi everyone! My name is Zeyu “Ward” Liu and I am an international student from China. I am a current junior at Pitt pursuing biological sciences with a microbiology focus! I am also on pre-med track and is looking forward to pursue a physican-scientist career. I am extremely interested in research and have done extensive progress so chat with me if you have any question regarding research, your career or your major! Looking forward to meeting you soon! Ekeoma Uzoukwu My name is Ekeoma Uzoukwu, but everyone calls me Kiki. I am a senior Microbiology major and I am minoring in both Chemistry and African Studies with a certificate in the Conceptual Foundations of Medicine. I intend to pursue an MD-PhD in order to become a physician-scientist in the future. In my free time you will find me working in my lab, trying out new restaurants in Pittsburgh with my friends, and watching shows on Netflix. And 10 superstar Bio Peer Advisors returning for a second or 4th semester: Mikaela Baratka 4th year E&E major Pre-Phd Maia Brown 3rd year MICRO major Pre-Med Riya Desai 3rd year CellDev & PSY major Pre-Med Jacob Frenchman 4th year BIOSC major Pre-Med Lori Huang 4th year BIOSC major Pre-Med Eric Jordahl 4th year CellDev & Classics major Pre-PhD Julianna Menendez 4th year BIOSC major Pre-Med Madison Palmiero 4th year BIOSC major Pre-PA Gopika Rajanikanth 4th year BIOSC major Pre-Genetic Counseling Kamron Woods 4th year MICRO Major Pre-med/PhD Office hours will be starting Tuesday, January 18th. Check out our website or the bio advising newsletter for details!
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Pitt Bio BlogThe Pitt Bio Blog is maintained by the Department of Biological Sciences Advising Office. Posts are authored by our students Archives
January 2022
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