Gabby Rogers: A Change in Perspective
When I started honors college, I learned that a breakaway was part of the curriculum and that one of the options was studying abroad. I never really thought studying abroad was an option for me; I didn’t have the time or the money. Then I talked to Dr. Craton. She showed me how I could work a semester abroad into my schedule and informed me that financial aid and my scholarships would cover the tuition for a university in England. Just like that, I was going to be studying abroad at the University of Winchester the spring semester of my Junior year. I had to take some summer classes so that I wouldn’t fall behind, but I was okay with that. I was going to England. I had always wanted to travel to Europe and now I was going to; I had never even been out of the country. In other words, I was ecstatic … then disaster struck, and its name was COVID-19.
Needless to say, here I am, in my senior year, and I still haven’t been out of the country. When I realized studying abroad wasn’t going to happen, I had to find something else to do for my breakaway. I thought about interning over the summer, but I didn’t have enough money to take time off of work. Like a lot of other people, I had lost all of my savings when I was put out of work after dine-in at restaurants was shut down. I was running out of time to figure something out; that was when Dr. Craton informed me that due to the extenuating circumstances, doing research at lander could count as my breakaway. So instead of going to England, I spent my semester knee-deep in genetics research trying to design a multigeneration experiment to test the effects of microplastics on zebrafish.
Fast forward to the beginning of this semester; we had finally gotten all of the materials for the project. We had also gotten a new research student this semester, a sophomore. It was now time to start preparations to conduct the experiment starting with proper acclimation time for the zebrafish to get used to the new environment. It was during this time that I got to hear about the breakaway experiences of other students in the honors college. I listened to the students talk about internships and jobs where they had all these great experiences. I was glad that many of the students were able to have an incredible breakaway despite interference by COVID, but I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous too.
Meanwhile, the other research student and I decided to start practicing the laboratory techniques and tests we would need for the experiment. I knew that I would have to help him with a lot of the more complex techniques. What I didn’t expect was having to explain some of the more basic skills that he should have been familiar with. When I asked him about the techniques, he said that he vaguely remembered discussing some of the tests we were running, but that he hadn’t had much hands-on experience with them. This shocked me; these were the basic skills needed to learn the more complex techniques that were required for upper-level labs. I decided not to press the subject. Instead, I just gave him a pipette and asked him to prepare some solutions while I worked on running the tests. I’m not going to lie; I was a little annoyed.
After a while, I decided to start teaching him some of the techniques that we would need for the experiment. I quickly realized that I didn’t mind teaching him lab skills; he was a fast learner and it made me feel more confident in my own lab skills. I showed him how to run a PCR test and while we were waiting I asked him about his freshman year. He told me about his classes being either online or hybrid, including his labs, which primarily consisted of online modules. He told me about how confused he was most of the time and that he hadn’t really retained much of the information. I remember thinking that this would hurt him in the future.
It wasn’t until much later that I really started to think about what he had said. I loathe online classes, and the first lab I had after COVID hit was completely online. We either had a module or case study that we were working on; they were always confusing and I didn’t feel like I was learning anything. It was frustrating, and I was a junior; he was only a freshman. I was already familiar with most of the equipment and techniques we were using; he wasn’t.
I realized that, like him, a lot of the sophomores were missing some of the fundamental knowledge and skills they would need to build on for the more complex upper-level classes.
Having to take classes and lab online made my junior year just that much harder, but to this day my freshman year was by far the hardest. This is not because the information was difficult to comprehend, but because of the massive adjustment from high school to college. Just like the zebrafish had to acclimate to their new environment, students use freshman year to acclimate to college. Students learn how to take notes, study and manage time. This process is crucial because the classes are only going to get more difficult.
Talking with the sophomore research student, I realized that a lot of the sophomores were ill-equipped going into their upper-level classes, and it’s not really their fault. Sophomore year is sort of a weeding out period in the biology program; they had to take organic chemistry this semester. I saw many fully-equipped students fail organic in my sophomore year. If the current sophomores made it through organic, they should be able to make it the rest of the way; however, those that didn’t will have to consider changing majors or transferring.
The realization of just how hard the current sophomores have to work to make up for the difficulties they faced during their freshman year put a lot of things into perspective for me. I was so upset about not being able to have the amazing breakaway I had imagined, that I hadn’t really considered the impact COVID could have on some of the other lander students. It may not have been my first choice, but I gained a lot from my breakaway experience. If I hadn’t chosen to do the research project, I wouldn’t have realized how much I enjoy genetics, and I wouldn’t currently be working on a genetic emphasis. Seeing what some of the sophomores are going through made me realize how grateful I am to have spent my breakaway doing something I enjoyed, regardless of where I was located.
Gabrielle (Gabby) Rogers is a Lander University senior majoring in Biology with a genetic emphasis and a chemistry minor. She participated in an undergraduate research project for the Department of Biology at Lander University during the 2021 spring and fall semesters. She plans to attend medical school after graduating in December 2022.