Abigail Wills: Grateful for Challenge
It was around 4:15 p.m. on a Friday evening. A faint smell of preservatives lingered on my clothes from having spent three hours in the comparative vertebrate anatomy lab dissecting the cardiovascular system of a cat. My hands and concentration were worn. This was after already spending the day between other class lectures and research meetings. I made my way down and across the hall to the research lab of one of the professors who was on the ecological research team. Our research article submissions were due at the dreadfully familiar 11:59 p.m., so we were making the final revisions on everyone’s papers.
Abby in the field as she collects data from one of the camera traps
During the 2020-2021 academic year, I conducted research at Lander University within the Department of Biology. The project focused on studying ecology in Upstate South Carolina. It involved using camera traps to collect data on the observation frequencies of different species and their behaviors regarding appearance by time of day, time of year, and windows between disturbances. I used this information to write a research paper on niche partitioning between red and gray foxes, which was submitted to the South Carolina Upstate Research Symposium. I then presented my work at this conference as well as the Lander University Academic Symposium.
It was well through the spring semester when class assignments, projects, and exams were all being scheduled on top of each other. Between the week prior to the submission and the week of, I also had a comparative vertebrate anatomy lab practical, a biochemistry assignment and exam, as well as a physics quiz, lab report, and homework. I was then working part-time at a local animal hospital as a kennel technician. The night before the research article submission, I had also been working an evening shift.
Abby in the field with the team as she notes updates about one of the cameras
Throughout the past few weeks, I had been focusing on writing up the components of my research article while also managing these course deadlines and work responsibilities. We had also been spending the weekends traveling to the different camera trap locations, replacing batteries and collecting data from the SD cards. I was yearning for a weekend off to catch my breath and a short break. I was facing burnout and lack of sleep due to staying up late to work on my research paper and study for comparative vertebrate anatomy, but it was nearing the last stretch.
The team sat around the lab bench with their laptops, chargers, papers, pens, and a copy of last year’s South Carolina Upstate Research Symposium journal sprawled across the tabletop. We alternated between reading through each other’s papers individually and as a group, correcting grammar and sentence structures as well as ensuring that the paper and citation formatting were correct. This included everything from adding missing commas to italicizing volume numbers in the references to making sure certain people were mentioned in the acknowledgements. We then completed one last read through to confirm that all the big picture ideas of the papers were addressed clearly and concisely.
Four hours later, it finally came time to submit our articles. The moments after the submission were surreal. I couldn’t believe I had finished conducting my own research and writing an article that was on the path to being published in a journal. While I knew the next steps of this experience involved presenting this work, which would inevitably bring more stress, I allowed myself to enjoy the relief of this portion being over. Not only was I happy to be done writing my paper, but completing this step also allowed me to recognize how appreciative for the opportunity I was. Finally submitting the paper sparked a feeling of pride within myself because this experience was demanding and resulted in my own publication.
Abby's research poster
This experience pushed me in ways I had yet to be thus far in my academic career. It provided opportunity to apply and practice the knowledge I had learned throughout various courses and in a challenging manner. I encountered determining which statistical tests to use and how to use software unfamiliar to me in order to run them. I had to analyze data and extract information from these results to draw generalized conclusions. Writing this into a research article then required me to express these complex ideas and explanations both accurately and concisely while effectively displaying my understanding of the material.
Although admittedly maybe not so much in the moment, I am now grateful for the challenge that this provided because it allowed me to develop my technical skills, oral and written communication, and critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. These are all applicable and even essential to professional school and working in the field, preparing me and laying the foundation for anything I may do or experience after graduation either academically or interpersonally.
Abigail (Abby) Wills is a senior biology major with a pre-veterinary medicine emphasis and minors in chemistry and psychology. She completed an undergraduate research experience at Lander University within the Department of Biology during 2020-2021. She plans to attend veterinary school after graduating in May 2022.