Research possibilities
If anything, scienctific discovery is a very slow process that requires years of dedicated commitment. The results, however, definitely make every effort worthwhile. What I can honestly say about researching this summer is that 8 weeks is nowhere near enough time to complete a worthy science project–I’ll be able to produce some results, but I won’t have the time to replicate them. I feel that if I could repeat my project again, everything will go much smoother because things had to be figured out as time progressed. The processes of retrieving data require massive amounts of time, and mistakes are inevitable, further delaying progress. In this sense, research truly tests one’s patience and I want to say that all the scientists who have actually produced admirable results were able to realize their goals by having tremendous patience over the course of the years. Thus, any misconceptions that I had had of science being a rather quick process (that experiments are fast and are quick to yield results) have all been dispelled. But this program has made me want to spend more time to conduct further research so that I may actually grasp more of the things in my discipline as well as familarize myself with other research techniques and ways of thinking. And I’m definitely excited that I have 3 more years at Duke to expand my knowledge of science, so that I’ll be able to better understand and apply my research.
One thing, I think, that distinguishes research from other careers is the freedom that you get to pursue your questions. It’s a very self-driven career; there’s really no one else to tell you what to do because there are simply too many unanswered and unasked questions out there. This makes research both exciting and risky…you never know what you might end up discovering, or you might find that you really aren’t capable of answering your question at the moment.
