Liz's Declassified 20.109 Survival Guide

Now that we've all successfully completed and survived 20.109, I feel that we should impart our wisdom to the upcoming class next semester. Here are my tips to help you survive 20.109:

Tip 211: Get a jump start on the next major assignment

This is something we all tell ourselves we're going to do before each assignment. Do me a favor and don't just tell yourself, actually do it. Take advantage of the homework assignments; if you do a thorough job, you'll be able to use them to construct most of your major assignment. Trust me, you'll be one of the few that gets a full night's rest the night before the assignment is due and you can walk into class the next day looking like this:

Tip 109: But if you're a procrastinator, invest in some caffeine

You're going to need the boost when you're hard at work the night before the big assignment is due. However, if the procrastination lifestyle works best for you, who are we to judge? Warning: consume in moderation 

Tip 856: Makes sure to always check the wiki

The wiki contains all of the due dates for assignments, quiz dates, and protocols for every lab day. Make sure you take the time to look over the wiki so you're not caught off guard

Tip 11: If you get unexpected results, don't freak out

We do real science in this class. Every result has a some sort of significance to it, even if your results indicated nothing changed/ everything became nonfunctional. Just because your project wasn't the best, doesn't mean you don't have something to contribute. 

Tip 673: Have a problem? Don't be afraid to ask for help

The professors for this class are phenomenal. Ask questions in class, send an email, go to office hours. They will try their best to answer your question as soon as possible and answer it thoroughly. They are very patient and genuinely want to see you succeed. Don't be afraid to say something!

Tip 900: Take the time to talk to other groups

Over the semester, you will be seeing the same group of people for a few hours every week. Don't make the mistake of getting through the whole course and not knowing anyone other than your lab partner. Great friendships are waiting to be made!

Tip 435: Be prepared for a lot of research and writing 

This class is a CIM and is listed as a 15 credit class. This class will consume over 15 hours of your time each week. You will have over fifty tabs of research articles on your internet browser at any given time and you will spend hours trying to make your writing sound more 'scientific'. It takes hard work and determination to be a 20.109 geek.

Tip 20109: Relax, breathe, and enjoy the class 

This semester will go by quickly and before you know it, it'll all be over. Take some time to enjoy the new skills you'll be learning and the people you're working with. 

With these tips, you should be all set to survive the next semester! Good luck!

To Be Your Own PI (kind of)

My idea for an addition to 20.109 isn’t so much to replace a module with something else but more like an addendum for after the class. I think the notion of getting more experience in experimental design was touched upon during our class wide feedback, and is something I also wish there was more of in 20.109. The research grant proposal was a really awesome way of getting us to think more creatively about the stuff we had been exposed to in the class, but because it wasn’t actually going to be ever acted upon, I think there were some parts of the experimental design that I kind of brushed off. But more importantly, my project is something that I think would have been really cool to pursue in an actual lab setting (and even emailed the author of the base paper after the end of the project). I’ve heard rumors about being able to take 380 in the fall and pursue the project in the spring, and I think a smaller scale version could be done with 109. Maybe in a UROP type setting that allows us to use the resources in the 109 teaching lab in the semester following the class. Because part of our assignment was to incorporate techniques used in 20.109, I think creating a UROP to actually do the experiments could be feasible within the equipment available in the teaching lab. 

Thanks to 20.109 we might have some idea what we're doing.

Given that our projects were on a much smaller scale than 380 projects, I think a UROP setting could be appropriate as opposed to a full class. Obviously, a proposition like this would require much more detailed plans for the students beyond what was done for the research proposal, but I think it would allow students to get much more invested in their research proposal projects as well as given them a taste of doing research on a topic entirely of their choosing instead of being dropped into a predefined UROP. I was lucky enough to go to a faculty dinner with Professor Belcher yesterday, and she was talking about how exciting it is to be your own boss and to really think and develop the ideas that excite you. I think a post-20.109 UROP set up like this would be an excellent opportunity for students to try that out.

Too Much of A Good Thing...

I came into 20.109 feeling pretty confident about my scientific communication abilities. I had been doing science fairs for years and was pretty used to poster-style presentations. I was honestly super naïve about the other forms of scientific communication and I’m so glad I got exposure to them through 20.109. I think with both verbal and written communication, I struggled (and continue to struggle, but less so) with including way more than is necessary. In our first min-presentation in Mod 1, I had a hard time cutting down all the stuff we did into 3 minutes and in the journal club I was rushing through the whole presentation because I had just included way too many things for a 10-minute presentation. I never thought I would feel like a 10-minute solo presentation would feel short, but at the end I was left wanting much more time to speak. 

But this was a product of my own doing, I definitely could have presented the contents of that paper really well within those 10 minutes had I just omitted some of the repetitive and unnecessary stuff. Which is what I tried to keep in mind for the grant proposal presentation. Too much detail was definitely a bad thing. I was constantly trying to strike the right balance between actually providing the needed information but not going overboard in the details that I included. It felt a little bit like the process of methods writing, which is still an area that I need to get much better at (I have this compelling desire to include every single step because I’m just constantly worried that the reader won’t be able to actually discern what the experiment was). I know writing methods sections are super boring and I’m sure are super boring for the teaching staff to read, but I think it might be beneficial (at least for people like me) to have one or two more homework assignments that have us write just one subsection of the methods section. It’s a little daunting to do a half of a full module, but I think it’s a skill I need to develop further and that might have been achieved by smaller methods section homeworks spread throughout the semester.

I know they told us 7 posts, but so hard to say goodbye

We spent so much time together, and on the class assignments. This will be deeply missed, I have no idea how to describe this feeling of achievement at the end of the course, mixed with the sadness of departing all the great staff, students, lectures and projects throughout the semester.



What I will miss:

1- The forest seen by my lab partner, Jordan Smith, while I kept my eyes on the trees. Complimentary skills combined and dedicated to the best performance.

2- The supporting space created by the teaching staff in office hours, and the additional office hours around major assignments.

3- The weirdest snacks that I have ever seen...

4- The students that we spent so much time with.

5- The interactions with the teaching staff that taught me an insane amount of knowledge and trained so many useful skills.

6- Our lab bench, as team orange, now the color orange sends a chill down my spine since this is over forever.

7- The list can keep going on, but I encourage the entire class to add more and more thoughts to the list. I am sure that the course staff will find use and feedback with this kind of information!


In the end, the people will always stay in heart and thoughts, and the skills will always be remembered and improved with the foundation established in this class. Best of luck everyone, always.



Farewells,
Though hopes to see you around,
Saleem Aldajani

Juiceboxes and Communication

Our meeting with the BE Communications Fellow was super last minute. We didn’t sign up until OH the day before, at which point there weren’t even appointments available in the afternoon of the next day (this was worrisome as our Grant Proposal Presentation was the day after). Thankfully, Maxine was sitting right next to us and offered to email one of the fellows to see if he could take a meeting with us.

The next day, me and Pearl met up ready for the meeting. I was kind of anxious because we hadn’t really practiced our presentation yet and there were even a couple of slides missing and I honestly just didn’t know what would happen at this meeting. But Diana invited us into her office to grab some snacks before our BE Fellow showed up, and juice boxes have a very calming effect.

Basically me.

Finally, our meeting with Bill started and it was a little bit of a whirlwind. We tried presenting for the first time together, and it went surprisingly smoothly. He had really great feedback for us afterwards, both regarding slide content and for our overall grant proposal. I lost my anxiety as soon as we actually started talking to him (equipped well with my juice box). We managed to talk for almost 45 minutes about our project, and I felt a lot better about it afterwards. Presenting the project to someone a little removed from the 20.109 bubble was really beneficial, and I wish we had gone sooner. I think adding a BE Communications requirement earlier in the semester would be super helpful for future students.

Overall Reflections As A Non-Course 20

Overall Reflections As A Non-Course 20


This class was definitely one of those classes that change your life. I found it more rewarding as a CI-M than the other CI-M that I took for course 10. The standards were higher, the class was more structured, and the assignments were super intense. If you ever have to do writing and presentations in other classes, you'd nail them after 20.109 skills. I experienced this first-handedly.

In terms of the science and how it taught, it is absolutely phenomenal. I felt no problems with my limited background and the lectures and pre-labs were more than enough to understand all of the material. I was caught up to speed very quickly and was able to perform with no barriers.

The pace was really fast, but it was fun. I really enjoyed it, and you also develop a great relationship with your lab partner. Lab periods become better and better as the 20.109 family gets closer and closer. The instructors and labs involved do a lot of work behind the scenes to make sure we are successful, whether it was redo-ing failed experiments, or doing the time-sensitive parts of experimentation outside of lab periods. That is something I do not commonly see in other classes.

These may be unique reflections since not many non-course 20s take this course. So I thought if I focused a post on it, it might spark a discussion that can potentially make constructive change. Please share your thoughts, and I'll try to update this with more content– as I am still processing all the skills I learned, all the feedback I received, and how to use them to improve my performance and enhance my preparation for what is yet to come.


-Saleem Aldajani

Thank You

All in all, 20.109 was a great experience. It had its ups and downs for sure, but the lessons it taught me were invaluable and I can't thank the teaching staff and my partner enough. From quick replies to emails, to giving us so much food (#figandolivecrackers), to crazy amounts of office hours, to coming in on weekends to fix our failed experiments, you guys were amazing. I’m so grateful to you guys for giving us so much of your time and energy. It’s part of what made this class such a good experience and part of what made me want to do well in it and improve as a scientist and communicator. 

I really appreciate the feeling of camaraderie that you all had with the students as well – it always felt like we were on the same side, whether it be about deadlines, grades, or even experiments. This is the kind of relationship I used to have with my teachers in high school, and I felt it was really missing after coming to college. Being one student out of a lecture hall of 150 didn’t really help. But I’m very happy to have found it again in 20.109 and I will really miss everything about this class.