​Prompt: ​How do you feel about returning back to classes next week? Do you anticipate a different experience of school now that you have been immersed in a workplace? What are you looking forward to about coming back? What are you going to miss about internship?

​Although I am excited to go back to school on Monday and start a new semester and see all of my friends, their will definitely be things I will miss about internship. I felt that internship allowed me to have the freedom of a college student or better said of an adult. I knew the things I had to do so I laid them out and thought of the best way to complete them without getting too overwhelmed. Internship taught me how to properly manage my own time and make my own schedule, at school it feels like the teachers have your daily schedule planned out for you, which isn't bad but I enjoyed the self created schedule more! I will also miss the quiet and self isolated environment, as I felt I worked best in this type of environment. ​

Prompt: What advice would you give to a junior in high school who wants to pursue a career in the field of your internship? ​

Prompt: What is going well with your project? What challenges are you facing?

So far my project is going very well and slowly tying together. Incase you need a recap on my project, my topic is cell splitting. I will be discussing why splitting cells is so important and what are the benefits of splitting cells. Along with an explanation of what procedures and lab techniques were used. Lastly I will talk in depth about what came challenging to me about the process as well as what wasn't much of a challenge to me. I genuinely have learned so much about this topic in the past two weeks that I feel confident my project will go smoothly. Although a common challenge I have is remembering the procedures without looking at my notebook. One of the undergraduate students working at the UCSD biomedicine lab said "Remembering the procedures will come with time and repetition, sometimes even I have to take a quick glance at my notebook."  

Prompt: What are social interactions like in your workplace? Do people spend a lot of time socializing? Are people isolated, doing their own things? Lots of collaboration on work projects? Not much collaboration? How does the social dynamic impact or reflect the organization's work?

When I first arrived at my internship site I quickly came to realize that everyone was very quiet and reserved, isolated working on their work. It wasn't of much surprise to me that the environment was like this, since its more or less what I expected. I notice the Doctors are very busy and rarely have time to talk to their colleagues. As for the undergraduate students working here I can tell they are very appreciative to be here and are the most talkative and enthusiastic in the lab environment. As for projects I notice that in the beginning of a big research project all of the members involved in the project get together and plan out who will do what. From there they all isolate from each other and work at their efficient pace. Below are pictures of some of their biggest research projects.

In these photos shown below I am doing my first hands on assignment in the UCSD biosciences lab. This is significant to me because I had been preparing all week by watching my mentor do this process as well as by taking notes and asking many questions about the process and proper procedures. In these photos I am working on splitting cells. The cell I am working with is (EA-hy926) also known as a somatic hybrid cell that can be used for cardiovascular disease research. It was quite challenging at first but I felt much more confident the second time I did it. 

Biomedicine is something that has always caught my attention from the surface of it. Now I am working with Doctors at UCSD's biomedicine research lab and really getting an opportunity to dive deeper into what biomedicine is and how complex it can be especially for a high school student who has never taken a biology class before. There are definitely lots of concepts and terminology that I still have to get familiar with, and that will come with time, exploration and research. My biggest challenge overall as briefly mentioned before is understanding the language and terminology that is used in the lab. As days go by I am starting to take more notes and research what the words that I am being told mean. And I'm beginning to feel confident as I'm using my notes as a resource. I would almost describe my notes as a miniature scientific dictionary. 

For my internship project I will be creating a PowerPoint presentation using basic academic biology skills and including real microscopic examples in order to backup my topic. My topic is cell splitting. I will be discussing why splitting cells is so important and what are the benefits of splitting cells. Along with an explanation of what procedures and lab techniques were used. Lastly I will talk in depth about what came challenging to me about the process as well as what wasn't much of a challenge to me. This will benefit the UCSD biomedicine lab because they are currently looking at and further researching splitting cells and adding some sort of drug for treatment and reaction and by letting me into their experiment not only are they benefitting but I am too. 

Today was the first day at my internship site! I was nervous most of the day but towards the end became more comfortable with the environment and Doctors there. I got to observe a RNA extraction, which was very interesting and sparked my interest more. RNA is Ribonucleic acid (abbreviated RNA) is a nucleic acid present in all living cells that has structural similarities to DNA. Unlike DNA, however, RNA is most often single-stranded. When walking into the lab I was automatically looking around at the stuff on the shelves  and seeing all of the different safety signs instructing to be careful with everything you touch and to not forget to use gloves and wear a lab coat. I noticed they had lots of fridges and at very specific temperatures. I remember seeing one that was set at -76 degrees celsius. Below I linked the RNA extraction procedures.