Fall 2018 semester was an incredibly busy time for me. Not only was it one of the most academically rigorous semesters for my major, but I was also able to fully dive into experimentation. The tissue we work with for my project can only be delivered on Thursday mornings and is only usable for approximately 48 hours. Unfortunately, Thursdays were my busiest days. I would always be in back to back classes and meetings until 5pm and then run experiments late into the evening and return the next morning to continue. I often found myself exhausted and stressed, but kept working towards my goal of collecting enough data to be able submit an abstract to a conference. It felt like there was never enough time for anything and there always seemed to be a major deadline approaching. However, through a combination of effective time management, prioritizing my activities, and tackling things one task at a time I made it through the semester.
While these past few months were frantic, in the end everything turned out okay. It was so rewarding to reflect on the semester over winter break and realize that even though things seemed overwhelming in the moment, I made a lot of progress on my project while simultaneously doing well in my classes. Overall, I was able to collect enough statistically significant data to submit an abstract to an American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine conference (which I was recently notified was accepted).
I’m excited to see what this coming semester will bring. My spring semester course load is not quite as demanding as last semester’s, so I will have more time to devote to working in lab.