Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Blog Entry 2: Our Second Full Day

By Allison Brennan

It’s 10:00 p.m. Tuesday night and most of us are pretty tired. We just got back from the movie theatre, where some of us saw the new batman movie, mama mia, or journey to the center of the earth. It was the perfect end to a busy day’s activities.

Our day began with a sprint to our first session after breakfast, in the monsoon-esque downpour that lasted all morning. I went with half of the group to an hour-long session with Dr. Viator about the use of lasers in medicine. In his laboratory we heard and saw how lasers can be used to identify cancerous cells in the blood once the cancer has spread, called metastases. Not only did we get to see this relatively new technology, we got to play with it! After an hour of shooting various light wavelengths across the room, creating beams of color, sound effects and wavelength graphs, we left the seminar and returned to the dorms before lunch.

The other half of the group went to a session on bacterial genomics, with Dr. Freyermuth, which I’ll attend later in the week.

After lunch the entire group went to a discussion with Marivern Easton to learn about medical school options. While the discussion was very down to earth and honest about the highly selective application process, about what it takes to prepare for and be in med school, the MCATS, etc., it was really informative and gave us an idea about what we should aim for (if we’re considering medicine).

Once again our group split in half. My group stayed put and heard a seminar from Dr. Linda Blockus about life science undergraduate research options. She really encouraged us to seek out research opportunities while working on our undergrad degrees to give us some experience in a related profession. I learned a lot about undergrad research that I didn’t know, like how some professors consider the research a part-time job and pay students for their time spent working on a project.

Next we heard a presentation about studying abroad while at MU. We saw some really awesome pictures, like several MU students riding elephants in Thailand, and others standing in front of the Eiffel tower. They also dispelled the “myths of studying abroad” for us, such as it being too expensive, setting you back for graduation, being unsafe, etc. We learned a lot in that short session about how international studying can be beneficial to our education.

Next we left the classroom to tour MU’s Yeckel and Glen Smart collections (basically large game and water fowl trophies stuffed and labeled for our benefit) with Dr. Walter Wehtje. There was everything from a rhino head to a whole stuffed swan. It was really interesting to see all of the large game trophies placed side by side for comparison. I was surprised to find that the elk head was almost twice as large as the moose head (who would have thought…).

From there Dr. Wehtje took us to his lab to see the rest of MU’s taxonomy collection. We learned how you can differentiate the different classes of small animals by observing their skulls and teeth. We looked at the skulls of an opossum, two foxes, a gopher, a couple of weasels and others.
After the taxonomy tour, we returned to the dorms (where I promptly scrubbed my hands), for some down time, and then headed off to dinner.

From dinner we went to the movies where I (and other people I’m sure) drooled over Christian Bale and Heath Ledger.

Upon returning from the movies, we broke up into our small groups to work on our projects. The project is to create a product/service that we will sell to investors that will be beneficial to the environment. Those are still a work in progress and will be presented to the group Friday night.

Everyone is looking forward to the float trip tomorrow and we’re hoping for nice weather after today’s downpour and Monday’s heat. Personally I can’t wait for Friday to check out the college of veterinary med. But it’s now 11:08 p.m. and I’m off to get some much needed rest.

Will write more tomorrow,
Allison Brennan

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