My main question is if my response works for the prompt. It'd also be nice if you'd edit for grammar and stuff. Tear it apart. Thanks!
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Stanford students are widely known to possess a sense of intellectual vitality. Tell us about an idea or an experience you have had that you find intellectually engaging.
Staining nerves for peripherin wasn't the way I imagine spending my senior year summer, but doing research at the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) opened my eyes to scientific research and presented an opportunity that I am thankful for.
Everyday brought something new. Most of the time, I was staining and quantifying results of my experiment. I wanted to find out whether putting cells into different solutions of other cells, proteins, and various other important molecules, if it would encourage the expression of different types of nerves. To do this, I stained for peripherin, a neurofilament that marked a certain type of nerve.
During the times between staining, there were many things to do. Sometimes I sat for hours, wrestling to understand a research paper, the glossary of a textbook or a computer in front of me. Other times I helped other graduate students with their research; after all the staining I have done, the lab nicknamed me the peripherin queen. Less often but some of the most exciting times of interning, I am able to watch my mentor at her work, extracting dorsal root ganglia from mice or creating mouse models of atopic dermatitis.
There are many times when I feel stupid at the lab. When the professors and students use vocabulary that I don't understand, I become confused. Determined to find the answers to my questions, I reread my biology textbook to refresh my memory, look up words online, and ask my mentor if nothing else works. Every time I understand what they are saying, I get excited. I know that my learning has paid off.
During my days at OHSU, my interest in biology grew and grew. However, what I have learned is only a little part of biology. My journey is not done; it has only begun. There is still so much more to learn.
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Stanford students are widely known to possess a sense of intellectual vitality. Tell us about an idea or an experience you have had that you find intellectually engaging.
Staining nerves for peripherin wasn't the way I imagine spending my senior year summer, but doing research at the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) opened my eyes to scientific research and presented an opportunity that I am thankful for.
Everyday brought something new. Most of the time, I was staining and quantifying results of my experiment. I wanted to find out whether putting cells into different solutions of other cells, proteins, and various other important molecules, if it would encourage the expression of different types of nerves. To do this, I stained for peripherin, a neurofilament that marked a certain type of nerve.
During the times between staining, there were many things to do. Sometimes I sat for hours, wrestling to understand a research paper, the glossary of a textbook or a computer in front of me. Other times I helped other graduate students with their research; after all the staining I have done, the lab nicknamed me the peripherin queen. Less often but some of the most exciting times of interning, I am able to watch my mentor at her work, extracting dorsal root ganglia from mice or creating mouse models of atopic dermatitis.
There are many times when I feel stupid at the lab. When the professors and students use vocabulary that I don't understand, I become confused. Determined to find the answers to my questions, I reread my biology textbook to refresh my memory, look up words online, and ask my mentor if nothing else works. Every time I understand what they are saying, I get excited. I know that my learning has paid off.
During my days at OHSU, my interest in biology grew and grew. However, what I have learned is only a little part of biology. My journey is not done; it has only begun. There is still so much more to learn.