In my sophomore year I took 250, Intro in evolution and ecology. This was one of the first classes that I had where the class was both online and in person due to COVID. It made it really interesting trying to work in a group and to get around the roadblocks that came along with it. This class focused on the environment and it has changed as a result of humans. For a group collaboration in this class, we had to pick a topic showcasing how a species or population had been altered over the years due to humans. My group decided to look how how pesticide affected a bird population in San Fransisco. I remember it was actually really difficult to start this project because of the lack of information out there, so we ended up choosing San Fransisco because it was one of the few cities with consistent data on our topic. Overall it was a fun project to work on, and I learned how to manage working in a group better because of the obstacles we had to over come.

In my junior year I took Cell biology. 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 had a hard time starting this project because there was so much research involved and we were pretty divided on which transcription factor we want to tackle. This was also the first time working in a group where I didn’t know everyone, which was a learning experience because it can be hard to know when someone will take offense to disagreeing with their idea. However, it ended up working out and we able to progress quickly once we got things underway. 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.

My senior year I took microbiology as one of my pillar courses, and it was probably one of my absolute favorite classes in my 4 years at Longwood. We did a group project that we created start to finish independent from the professor. We decided to work on an issue that was the relevant to the group, which was toxic shock syndrome. This topic was picked because we felt there wasn’t enough current research that focused on the issue or they why’s behind it. For the main component we looked into the different materials that can be found in tampons. Honestly the hardest part of this group collaboration was first picking a topic, but then developing our methods. It seemed we all had different ideas for how we wanted to tackle the project and what would make the most sense. We also weren’t super confident in ourselves with some of the choices we made, so it set us back time wise. Eventually we just mixed our ideas together and figured out a system that worked for everyone. Even though our results didn’t come out the way we wanted, it was still fun to create a whole project beginning to end with a group. I also knew everyone in the group collaboration which definitely made it more enjoyable, and because I was able to pick my group I felt much more motivated to help out and give it my all. I think while mixing up groups can be beneficial in meeting new people or sharing different ideas, working with friends can really allow people to enjoy what they’re working on and want to contribute. In some classes for my group collaborations, I was put with people who I clashed with personality or commitment wise, and it really put a damper on me wanting to be in that class.