BIOL368/F11:Class Journal Week 14

Chris Rhodes

1. Over the course of this semester I've learned a lot about disappointment. Certainly nothing in this class is handed to you. You have to work hard every week to get the assignment done or interpret the data on time. You definitely have to look creatively at your results in order to come up with relevant and useful conclusions. Sometimes it felt overwhelming and somethings had to be rushed and sometimes what you could give or what you could do just wasn't enough. And its frustrating knowing you put in so much time and effort and yet you don't get it perfect or missed something small along the way that ended up costing you a better conclusion than the one you came up with. It's disappointing to struggle against your data and lose. But I've learned and this class has taught me that, that is what science is about sometimes. In the real world there is no neat and pretty right answer, there is no perfect. There are deadlines to meet and data to crunch and sometimes what you come up with just isn't enough. You will miss things along the way and you will screw up because thats just a part of the job. Gaining knowledge means making mistakes and its a hard road to walk but the fact that I've seen it through this far, the fact that I've given so much of myself to this class has shown me that this is what I really want to do for the rest of my life. If it wasn't, I wouldn't still be in this class because the only thing that has ever kept me here was my love of science and research. So what I've learned in this class is that in spite of all the crap that goes along with the pursuit of knowledge and in spite of all the hardships I'll have to face in the future because of it, I want to be a scientist. So yeah productive semester I guess.
2. I feel like I answered this pretty well already but for the sake of space filling: If I were to take one thing away from this class it would be the importance of perseverance. This class has taught me that real science takes a lot of work and a lot dedication to achieve results and that sometimes the results you achieve are less than what you were hoping for, but thats ok. You keep on trying and you keep on working until eventually something goes right and then you start over and do it all again. Without the ability to get it wrong over and over until you get it right you can't do science and thats another important thing I've learned from this class.

Chris H. Rhodes 23:34, 6 December 2011 (EST)