The ghost of 6.0002 back to haunt us in Mod 2

I think a lot of us can acknowledge the fact that computation is an important part of the BE curriculum, but that didn't make me feel any better about being inundated with algorithms and data analysis during Mod2. Just when I thought I could start letting go of some *painful* memories forged during 6.00, we started learning about k-means clustering, hierarchical clustering, and RNAseq, all of which required me to recall some pieces of knowledge from two semesters ago that I'd probably already purged (oops). 

Working with R and analyzing the RNAseq data was definitely not my favorite thing in the world, but I don't think I'm in any place to complain because the code was pretty much completely written for us to begin with. Even so, the graphs, heat maps, and statistical data were all still pretty difficult for me to wrap my head around. It's no surprise, then, that I was in for quite an adventure when trying to decipher my computational paper for Journal Club.

The process started off quite strong; I wasn't going out of town until the Tuesday of spring break, so I spent quite a bit of time reading the paper, making notes, and beginning to craft some of my slides before spring break started. I really made a conscious effort to try and finish this as early as possible to give myself enough time to practice the presentation and delivery, but like everything in biology and research, just understanding the figures alone ended up taking so much more time than I had initially anticipated.


Despite having started to prepare for the presentation early in the week, I still found myself scrambling late at night the day before I was supposed to present. Since I'd finished a good portion of the slides before I left on my trip, I didn't worry about it too much until it was far too late...somehow I found myself silently reciting my presentation in my room in the middle of night so as not to wake my roommate with talk of mutational loads and responsive tumors. How did this happen??? Tune in for the Mod2 Research Article to see if I'll be able to beat procrastination next time???

In all seriousness, while this was a tough assignment, I really appreciated that it had so much practical relevance. I came into this class with no idea how to critically evaluate academic papers or even begin to understand them at all, but I learned a lot of valuable lessons through Journal Club. Public speaking is definitely not a strength of mine so I was thoroughly uncomfortable while I was presenting, but this is just one of those things that I recognize is not fun now but will really pay off in the future. 

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