Word: se-jin
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...data, no results, no conclusion. After eleven months of setting up experiments, preparing solutions and media, learning techniques and adjusting protocols, it was as if he were starting from scratch. "It's easy to give up unless you really believe it's what you want to do," says Se-jin Lee of his biochemistry research experience...
...been a struggle. "Whatever can go wrong, will." Se-jin believes. "You've got to keep telling yourself today is the day it will work. And then you've got to get incredibly lucky." Is he superstitious? "There's not time for prayers," he chuckles...
...just "another person in the crowd." He found the faculty unapproachable and the department providing little information for prospective researchers. But he knew, even without any experience, that he had an interest in the lab. So Se-jin took the matter into his own hands. "Nobody realizes how easy it is to get into research here," he says. "I had no idea." So he arbitrarily called one professor at the medical school whose work sounded vaguely interesting. "It never struck me that anyone would have me in their lab," he confesses. But once in, he was hooked...
...small lab: one professor, one post-doctoral candidate, one technician, and one Se-jin. A new home. "When you're a grad student it's important to be in the mainstream, to be in a high powered lab," he notes. "When you're an undergrad, it's important to get into a lab where the head person cares about you, where they are supportive and encouraging. My professor never closed his office door. He was constantly wandering about the lab. I was immediately a part of the work, which is more important than being with a name professor." Words...
Even with all the technical disappointments, with the contaminated experiments, with the mysterious dying cells, even with the super-sensitive equipment that must be pampered like an old Buick, the mathematician's son has had some fun. Basic research is time consuming, lonely, chancy, and incredibly discouraging. But Se-jin entered it as if slipping into a warm bath...