Week 10

Welcome to the last week of the senior projects! I can’t believe it’s here already.

Coinciding perfectly with the end of my senior project, the lab finished up a lot of projects that they have been working on. On Monday, I helped Bryce weigh the mice used in his study for the last time. He is done stressing the mice and will now analyze the impact that chronic stress had on proteins in their brains. An undergraduate students also helped me check the data from the aging and stress study that I put into Excel. We need to ensure that I transferred the right numbers and didn’t make any typos.

On Wednesday, since I finished up the study that I was working on, I helped with another study. For this study, rats are placed in a maze with three arms. The first time they are placed in the maze, an arm is blocked off. The second time, the arm is opened up. They are looking to see how much time the rat spends in this novel arm compared to the start and other arm. I was doing a lot of math in order to determine that for the remaining rats.

Today is Friday, and our lab meeting is a little different than usual. We are combining with another lab to listen to a guest speaker talk about sex hormone influences on cognition. I’m excited to see what the meeting is like.

For the rest of the project, I just need to practice my final presentation. Presenting it at last week’s meeting was really helpful, and I feel very confident talking about it now.

Looking back, I’m really glad that I got this opportunity as I am going to be able to continue with the lab in college. I came into this thinking I wouldn’t enjoy the research side of psychology as much as I did. It’s changed my perspective on working in a lab, and I’m excited to continue doing so. Overall, I would say that the senior project is a great way to explore new things even if they aren’t what you picture yourself doing as a career. Be open to all the potential site placements that come your way.

Finally, I would like to thank everyone that I’ve worked with: Dr. Conrad, Bryce Ortiz, everyone else at her lab Behavioral Neuroscience Research in Stress, my college counselors, my friends and family, and everyone who has been following along and reading my posts. Thanks so much!