Cell and molecular biology have definitely been both my favorite classes, but also the ones I’ve taken the most. This is probably because of the pre-med concentration I have, but I’ve found that these classes are also the ones I understand the best.

Asides from intro into genetic and cell biology my freshmen year, I’ve gotten the chance to experience a variety of higher level courses during my last 2 years here.

My fall of junior year I took cell biology. Cell biology has probably been my least favorite out of all of my cell and molecular classes. I think it was just so much information shoved into one class that I wasn’t able to fully comprehend everything. However, I was able to learn more about cell theory, since the whole class was literally about cells and where they came from and what they do. Cell theory has three main components to it, including that cells come from pre-existing cells and that all organisms are made up of cells. The main project for this class was to try alter gene expression by changing a transcription factor. I remember this actually really difficult to learn about because there were so many factors that could affect the specific gene we were looking at. However, it was also really interesting because it was the first time that I was able to do an in-class experiment that had so many lab steps involved, and I really enjoyed it. My group looked into the suppressing insulin expression though the knockdown of the transcription factor, dFOXO. We ended up getting data that supported our hypothesis, so that was pretty cool to see in person how altering one factor can change gene expression so much.

In the spring of my junior year, I took genetics. I really enjoyed this class because it honestly felt like I was back in high school again. The level of intensity was definitely more, but as for the content, it was a repeat of AP Biology, more or less. I liked being able to do the punnet squares again and that I was given family trees to track, but also that this was a topic that I could least comprehend and apply. There were points in the class that were definitely harder than others, but for the most part learning why human genetics works the way it does was really interesting. For the research portion of this class, we dealt with yeast. We were given the task of altering the fermentation properties of strain of yeast, and had to genomically modify it through a promoter swap. This was really fun because I like getting to do more hands on labs like this where something theoretically makes sense based off others research, but the results don’t always give you what you want. In our case, we were unsuccessful with our trials, but it was still fun to do. I also ended up getting into a research lab because of this class! So that is always a plus.

My senior year I took microbiology, and this was probably one of my absolute favorite classes in my 4 years at Longwood. I think I just really enjoyed the lab part a lot, there was so much hands on with it, and I got to learn so many new techniques. This included proper aseptic technique, gram staining and how to identify unknown bacteria. I think this class is also what made me realize that I could really love working in a lab after college. I think my favorite part about this class was the “Unknown,” project, which is where we were given two types of bacteria and we had to successfully identify what they were by doing a multitude of tests. It was really fun to be able to do the trial and error and to see how the bacterias reacted, and how you were really only left with one possible answer in the end. I also liked how independent it was, and how from that start you had to implement the skills learned over the semester. Wearing a lab coat was also really fun. We also got to do a group project that was supposed to be created start to finish independent from the professor. That didn’t go as well. There was a big time crunch and the methods didn’t produce the results we thought they were going to, but it was still fun getting to see it all come together. Plus, I got to stay in Chichester until 10:30 pm to get my samples out of the centrifuge; it always makes me feel extra sciencey to stay late in labs.