Update on my Research Hunting!

Yesterday, after the interview, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to watch two surgeries performed by the graduate student who interviewed me. The surgery part of research is something that has driven me to really pursue it.  In the surgery, we make several incisions in which we added catheters directly into the rats’ blood stream. I really enjoyed the experience and throughout the surgery I asked questions about everything. I especially found the fine motor skill requirement of the surgery to be right up my alley. The surgery involves adding a catheter into a very small vein which is a fairly challenging task. You can read more about the actual research here on Dr. Leslie’s lab webpage.

At 9:00 AM this morning I checked my inbox and saw a new email from the graduate student I interviewed with yesterday. He congratulated me and welcomed me to the group as his research assistant. I am really excited that this opportunity was given to me.  After going over several logistics about the position, it was decided that the initial training period will require 5-8 hours of my time per week. I have a feeling that I will end up spending more time there than the allocated amount. Ironically, the researcher said the same thing himself. I am glad that my work ethic and dedication easily recognized in the short time I spent with him in the interview and surgery.

The time I ask you to put in each week depends on the experiments we’re conducting. But from what I saw today, I might have a hard time keeping you away.

I am really excited to start working. One of my goals for this research is to eventually gain the trust, knowledge, and skill to be able to perform the surgeries myself. It would definitely be a key milestone experience for me. With this new addition to my schedule I definitely have to reorganize my priorities and better manage my time so that my performance isn’t crippled in ASDA @ UCI or my performance in classes.

This experience has given me the opportunity to refresh my portfolio and gave me the motivation to write a portfolio creation guide  about how to create a universal portfolio ready for any professional occasion. To begin I will be writing my upcoming post on creating the perfect résumé. They require a lot of nurturing in order to perfect. I will be providing advice, templates, and examples to create the perfect résumé.