Internship Journal: Week 1

This week I learned:

1. How much money I need to make to lead the life I want: $50,00
2. How long Ill have to stay in college to pursue a career that pays that much: 4
years or more
3. What chemical engineers are involved with: Gene sequencing, DNA-protein
interaction
4. What skills biologists need to do their jobs: Precision, Independence
5. What colleges I might be interested in: Harvey Mudd, Carlton College
I also had my first few days working in the Potts lab. On the very first two days, I
was asked to help a graduate student named Joey down in the weaning room, where
the mice are kept before being released into semi natural habitats. I basically just
wrote down various statistics about the mice before they were to be released into
the barn, including weight and what the ID number of the chip they had injected
was. Joey also took urine samples from the mice using an interesting method.
Apparently all mammals have a natural response to urinate when they are
uncomfortable, so by simply blowing on a mouses face, it was possible to get them
to urinate.
Internship Journal: Week 2
This week I learned:
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4.
5.

That you should ensure your values match your bosss values
That some biochemists must work in teams, but others can work alone
That careers in the sciences have both good employment and wages
A logical brain is required in the sciences
Careers in the field of law are very hard to come by.

This week I met Linda, basically the manager of the day to day running of the lab.
She is quite efficient, and had obviously done most of the jobs that she now has
others doing before. I also met another intern that I had a whole 11 hours
experience on named Philip. Linda assigned for us to both start on a process called

gel electrophoresis of nucleic acids, which sounded incredibly complicated, and

seemed that way as we began working on our first set of samples. It involved a lot
of measuring certain substances and test tubes and things that are typically
associated with science. That was all in order to prepare the samples at the end of
the week, but the actual gel part was to begin next week.
Internship Journal: Week 3
This week I learned:
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2.
3.
4.
5.

How to create a resume

How to create a cover letter
Why a cover letter is important and what it does
What a resume needs in order to stand out
What employers want to see when they read a resume and cover letter

This week I began to work on pouring gels with Philip for our gel electrophoresis of
nucleic acids. He had gone in on one of the days that I hadnt and therefore saw the
entire process before I had. It turns out however, that the process wasnt incredibly
hard, but it was complicated and involved more graduated cylinders, measurements
and finally the pouring of liquid that solidifies into a gel. The gel is then left for an
hour at least, or a week at most and then the very cool sounding part begins. It
involved setting up the gel vertically and putting samples in individual sections of it.
Then, an electrical current is sent through the gel for two and a half hours. Once the
gel is stained, you can then read what each sample was based on how far it moved
through the gel.
Internship Journal: Week 4
This week I learned:
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2.
3.
4.
5.

How to fill out a job application

The importance of a job interview
How to ace an interview
What kind of questions to be prepared for in an interview
My rights and what kind of questions I dont have to answer

After a complicated process of reading the gels, Philip and I learned that both of our
gels had turned up absolutely nothing. We learned that this occurs when you
measure the initial samples wrong, or put a little too much of one substance into a
mix and not enough of another, ruining the entire batch. The second gel however
went much faster and didnt require supervision. Unfortunately, my gel once again
failed to produce any results, and Philips had very few samples that turned up. We
had to practice pipetting using water and a scale in order to avoid making the same
mistakes yet again. Well see how next weeks gel turns out. Hopefully I will actually
get results.
Internship Journal: Week 5
This week I learned:
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2.
3.
4.
5.

What
What
What
What
What

kind of hazards there are in the workplace

my responsibilities at work are
my employers responsibilities are
sexual harassment is
to do if someone is being harassed sexually

Success! It appears that the third time is the charm, as my gel finally turned out,
with all of the samples turning out beautifully. I finally learned how exactly I was
helping the experiment. It turns out that in the barn while its possible to keep track
of all of the adult mice using the trackers we had injected earlier; there is more that
has to be kept track of in the barn. One is usually considered successful in nature if
they reproduce, and therefore we had to keep track of the parentage of the baby
mice or pups. To do that we used a simplified method, as female mice only have two
types of mitochondrial DNA that they pass to their daughters. Male mice are more
complicated, as they have three types of Y chromosomal DNA, but can still be
tracked. Anyway, what Philip and I were doing was determining what types of

mitochondrial DNA the female mice had so we could track parentage. I thought that
was pretty cool.
Internship Journal: Week 6
This week I learned:
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2.
3.
4.
5.

How important communication is

That listening is an active skill that requires concentration
About microexpressions and how they can help people read others
That Im both an Assertor and a Contemplator
That I believe Im a good listener, at least according to the quiz

WARNING: THIS JOURNAL NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART (SERIOUSLY)

This week the gels were put on the backburner, and Ive been tasked to help around
the lab. The main task was also a subject Ive been dancing around in these
journals. You see, the project Im helping with involves the study of a leukemia virus,
specifically links between transmission and virulence between males and females.
Unfortunately after a populations experiment is completed, all of the mice must be
dissected in order to get this data. So an uncomfortable process begins, mainly the
extermination of the mice. The lab is incredibly humane about it, and uses C02 to
put the mice to sleep and the increases the amount to asphyxiate them. The mouse
is then dissected. I was in charge of measuring the spleen and liver sizes of the
mice, as a mouse that the virus was more effective on would have larger ones,
because thats where the virus targeted. I probably wont put this part of the
process in the video.
Internship Journal: Week 7
This week I learned:
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2.
3.
4.
5.

That personality is innate, children are born with unique traits

What personality actually is
That Im a Red & a Blue
That my motives involve power and closeness
That Reds are most often frustrated when not at the top of the career ladder

This week we talked about viral theory, mostly about why we were doing this
particular experiment. The answer was based partly on that an experiment had
been done a few months before that had an interesting outcome: A sample group of
males and females were infected with the virus, and at the end of the experiment it
was found that the males had a 20% mortality rate while the females had a 100%
mortality rate. Now the reason this is interesting is because in general, females
have a better immune system than males. They decided to delve deeper, hence the
current experiment. As to why this might be, they have a few hypotheses that they
plan to tell us next week in a meeting. It should be interesting to say the least.
Internship Journal: Week 8
This week I learned:
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2.
3.
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5.

My life is probably busier than a lot of other students this summer

That college classes take more time than regular classes
That it is often helpful to set goals in order to succeed
Various techniques to overcome procrastination
How to use a calendar to keep track of all of my important dates and times

This week I learned various hypotheses and more reasons why this experiment is
strange. In general, it is thought that if a virus is more transmissible, it can afford to
be more virulent (deadly, effective, etc.). The example many think of is Ebola, which
spreads like wildfire, but burns itself out as it kills most everyone it infects. The
interesting thing about this experiment is that the males are the ones that transmit
this virus more, presumably through biting, yet it is less virulent in them. Perhaps
there is some kind of trade off? Another theory is that the virus targets cells in the
immune system, so by having a better immune system, which means more of these
cells, it actually makes the host more vulnerable. Whatever the case, Philip has to
create a poster documenting this research and present it at the end of the week,
and then hes done. I still want to do more however.

Internship Journal: Week 9

This week I learned:
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4.
5.

People who work in STEM fields tend to earn more than those who dont
People with higher degrees have less unemployment
People with lesser degrees earn less than those with higher ones
Physicians and surgeons make an average of $166,400+ per year
Political Scientists make on average $100,920 per year

This week I helped set up the barns, which involved a lot more work than I had
realized. In a completely clean pen, first you have to set up the fences to divide it
into 6 pieces. The fences are made of wire and are surprisingly sharp. Next, you
have to set up the more and less desirable habitats. This helps determine how fit
the mice are. Next, you have to put bedding all over the pen, at least 5 pounds of
the stuff, which is similar to sawdust. Afterwards, you set up water dishes that have
a design that allows them to hold quite a bit of water, yet allows the mice to drink
and not contaminate the source. Finally food is poured in the tops of sections of PVC
pipe. The mice eat the food from the bottom by climbing towers that have been set
up. In total the process takes a good 6 hours of work, but it is somewhat rewarding
to see the mice in a pen you set up.
Internship Journal: Week 10
This week I learned:
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5.

More about SMART goals

What Ill need to do to become a biophysicist
About myself, and where I want to wind up in 50 years
Ill need to pick out two or three goals to focus on
What a real job in the lab involves, mainly much more than my internship.

I find it fitting that on the final required week of my internship that I took down barn
pens, and cleaned them out. The cleaning process is actually pretty interesting, as
you have to load everything, and I mean everything from the pen onto carts and
wheel them across campus to the washer. The washer is similar to a carwash in the

sense that its basically a tunnel. However, superheated water is used to clean
everything that goes through, the water is at 180 Fahrenheit, so obviously
protection is needed. One person is at each end of the washer, the first just needs
gloves to load the items onto the rack. The other person, me in this case, wears a
full apron, elbow-high gloves and scrubs. They basically unload everything and
stack it onto the cart and voila its clean. You also feel like a mad scientist wearing
that outfit, so thats a plus, even if it takes 4 hours or so.