Wednesday, July 23, 2008

I admit it, my summer student is awesome

When my advisor informed me that I would mentor a summer student during my remaining months of graduate school, I was not thrilled. I sighed, I complained, I rolled my eyes, I repeatedly pushed my hair off my forehead even though it was tied back.
I didn't think I had the time or the patience to deal with an undergraduate researcher. There were experiments to do, papers to write, committee members to convince and a deadline to graduate looming in the distance. Besides, my medical student researcher a few summers ago turned out great and I really didn't think I would hit the jackpot twice.
I am so glad that I was wrong. My Peruvian summer student (PSS) is a hard worker and my advisor and I are asking her to stay in the lab for the next semester. Instead of making my summer a pain in the butt, she has helped me out tremendously and will continue to do so for a few more months. I am very excited about this turn of events.
She spent part of the summer screening a transposon library and now she will get to map the transposon insertion sites. I hope all of them aren't genes that I already know about.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hahahahah, i was just talking to my labmate today about needing an extra set of hands to run my transposon screen....I must say ima weeee bit jealous. and im glad that she is awesome...it would have been a bummer had it been any different.