Adam's Work

So I realized that I haven't talked to many people about grad school. Obviously John knows, and maybe a few others, but for the rest of you I'll give you a heads-up. Graduate classes are mostly half semester classes at the U, but they hit you with so much info that you have to learn to apply concepts literally overnight. The courses I'm taking are Genetics, Genetic Engineering, Protein and Nucleic Acid Biochemistry, Gene Expression, and Research Ethics.

On top of having a full load of these classes I'm also expected to rotate through 4 labs in my first year. After the first year you have to pick the professor with whom you plan to work for the next 4 years as you do your dissertation/thesis work. So an average week right now consists of ~10 hours of class ~20 hours of lab work and ~6-10 hours of homework. After the first year you write up a proposal of what you plan to do for your dissertation and present that to a committee (a panel of between 4-6 professors including your adviser) and defend why it is important work and how you plan to answer the big questions involved in your proposal. This proposal and defense is known as "pre-lims," and is the biggest hill to get over for new graduate students.

Once you pass then you really don't take any other classes unless your adviser suggests one for you. But you have to be a teachers assistant (or TA) twice a year and teach undergrad or graduate students who are taking the classes you've taken before or are capable of teaching. So I'll be working on my dissertation work and TA-ing after this year. The pictures I've included are from the lab I'm rotating in right now. I am working on understanding how the bacterial flagellum is assembled in the cytoplasm and periplasmic space. In other words, "You know how some bacteria have tails that they whip around to move in water, or your blood? Well it is made up of a bunch of tiny complex parts that all interact in really specific and controlled ways, but nobody knows exactly how all the different parts work with each other. We're finding out how." I don't work with nematodes (worms) or tardigrades (water bears) any more, strictly bacteria now.

This is the bench where I work and my desk (on the left), for the time being. About mid-October I will be switching labs though so I will update something then...hopefully. Here's also a picture of an E. coli cell...the bacteria that I work with every day. Don't worry none of the ones I work with can make you sick. I also wanted to show a picture of the major parts of the flagellum so you can see how complex the system really is. Keep in mind that this picture is really simplified, and may not be entirely correct.