Connections

After almost a full semester, a lot of knowledge has been crammed into my head, but one fact in particular has stuck out the most. By taking part in this program and getting to know all the speakers and faculty, you will make more connections than you could possibly dream of in such a short amount of time. The list of speakers Ryan posted earlier is alone impressive, but then after reading countless journal articles and becoming familiar with the big names in the field, I realized that many of these people are either teaching us directly or will be meeting with us later on in the semester. These meetings can open many doors for us as we try to break into the real (job) world. For graduate students, this means we can find out potential internships, which could turn into jobs at the end of this program. There are also many opportunities for undergraduates to work in a professor's lab and gain valuable research and laboratory experience. This is just one more thing to add to the resume once you graduate.

It also recently occured to me that even if a desired internship is unavailable, opportunities can come from another direction. Typically a professor or researcher who does not have any space in his lab will try to set you up with another friend who is looking for an intern. This is a connection from a connection. I have also learned that the biology community is very small and everyone seems to know everyone else. For example, I personally ran into a friend I went to undergrad with just last week at one of the speaker's talks. We started to catch up and by the end of the intermission I was introduced to another person who had internship opportunities. As anyone in the real world will tell you, it is all about who you know, and the sooner you begin to make the connections, the better off you will be.

Food web courtesy of The Onion