The LAST Assignment

As I started writing this blog post I realized it is my last assignment for this class which made me really happy. 20.109 has been quite the journey. It is perhaps the most difficult class I've taken at MIT, but it is also perhaps the most rewarding. It takes up a lot of time and dedication. However, you become very invested in the work as a result.

For example, this research proposal actually turned out to be quite a bit of fun. After the journal club presentation, I was feeling a little less confident in my presentation skills. My feelings could accurately be described by the following meme,

However, getting to design a research idea with a partner was a lot of fun. We got to be very creative in our design and idea, and cycled through a bunch of other less feasible ideas before we came to the one that we ended up doing. Brainstorming was perhaps the best part. Another great aspect about it was that, by the time we finished 20.109, it actually feels like we have the skills to pull off implementing our research ideas even though it's all theoretical.

The actual presentation turned out to be a lot of fun. Especially with such a lighthearted idea, it felt easy to present about in a coherent manner. Also, since it was our own idea, we could be super confident about everything we were saying. The comm lab and the teaching staff were definitely super helpful in getting the presentation in shape as well.

Now that 20.109 is all but over, it's a great relief, but it was also a great experience. It's no surprise that we always see so many former students come back to visit. It's a pretty transformative experience, and I definitely feel like I improved as a writer and scientific communicator in general. And now that it's over, thank you all for a great semester and enjoy this last meme.


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