when I walked into the lab for the first
time I was astonished by all the
machinery the large centrifuges fume
hoods pipettes freezers in scientists
running around to safely retrieve their
samples getting to this point was a lot
more difficult however I sent emails to
dozens of professors at OHSU and after a
couple of weeks I received only two
responses both of whom telling me that
they didn’t have enough space time or
resources for me to join their lab while
this was disappointing at first I
decided to keep trying learning more
biology on the way and eventually I got
an email back from a renowned genetics
professor who told me that I should come
meet with him and discuss the
possibility of me pursuing research in
his lab after the hour-long meeting of
discussing ongoing and possible future
projects went well he told me that I
should finally come and try to
contribute to an ongoing project this is
when things got real and more difficult
than before the hard work finally came
around and I discussed the project with
my for the first time with my principal
investigator I was confused on where to
begin thinking that I could figure it
out with the materials and resources
that were given to me I had no idea on
how to approach this project I read
dozens of research papers on my subfield
of study and I felt like I gained in
overall conceptual knowledge of genetics
but I just didn’t know how to apply it
to this new project in front of me I was
scared to ask questions and didn’t know
how to use the tools that were given to
me I went home everyday from the lab for
the first three weeks thinking about how
to overcome this fear of telling my
professor that I didn’t understand but
never had the courage to do so after
recently joining the lab three weeks in
I decided I had to change something I
was not getting everything I could from
this research experience
so one day I walked into my professor’s
office and confessed my lack of
knowledge on the project being a great
mentor instead of telling me what I did
wrong he went through the research
papers that he’d given me in the past
and sent me numerous more presentations
to help me understand the project better
he showed me that even though I had
little experience in scientific research
that I had the dedication to keep trying
and he appreciated my willingness to
come forward and confess my lack of
knowledge
it was the faith and confidence that he
had in me that continued my drive in
scientific exploration and reached my
goal of producing and publishing
research soon after this experience I
became less hesitant to ask questions
not only to him but the other friendly
lab members I became more and more
acquainted with lab equipment being able
to perform more complex techniques by
myself eventually I learned so much from
this experience I was able to perform my
own research on constructing short
synthetic promoters there have been
several hardships in my own research
however during the bacterial
transformation phase one that’s
important to the success of my
methodology the recombinant DNA wasn’t
present and bacterial colonies didn’t
form with no way to go back one step I
had to restart everything this point was
devastating disappointing in
heartbreaking I thought I hit an
unpassable roadblock and I wondered
whether I just wasted my time all along
in the lab in science it often feels
like we’re only rewarded if we’re able
to successfully publish a research paper
with it but after consulting with my
professor I realized that this was not a
complete failure rather an unexpected
hardship that only led me to a new
opportunity to learn and to actually
improve my project when I’ve reflected
upon my journey and tried to understand
what it is about research that keeps me
motivated the answer has not always been
clear research takes
time energy and motivation to try to
continue to finish a project all while
managing the fear of failure then what
is it that keeps me and many others
going in scientific research well the
goal of science is to improve the future
most of us Reacher’s researchers have a
desire to improve and add on to our own
knowledge but also contribute to the
scientific community to better
understand the world and ourselves now
when I look back at it I think it was
extremely gutsy for my professor to
allow me a 14 year old at the time to
join and provide funding for my time in
the lab his belief of giving a high
school student research privileges and a
high class lab is something that is rare
but has allowed me to see the real-world
challenges of failures and hardships and
find a discipline that I truly love in
general many of us try to avoid
hardships and challenges in our life and
this is because we think that failures
have a negative connotation and that we
all have a winning mentality to do
better than our past selves and to do
better than others but the trick which I
use is to actually use these failures
and hardships to improve our future
performance failures are an integral way
and an instrumental opportunity to
actually apply quick learnings and
improve our future of selves this
concept of leveraging failure doesn’t
only apply to science whether you enjoy
literature or art or history or
engineering or any other field we do
things seek to be challenged and learn
because we have a desire in the field we
study I’m not telling you to drop
everything and become a scientist rather
when a new opportunity arises in your
field
take it and remember that failure is a
part of the process the hardships that
you will see will only lead to new
opportunities to learn to actually
improve yourself today I want you to
reflect on why you study in your given
field what you want to see in your
your work and what new opportunities you
will seek in your career Thomas Edison
considered the world’s greatest inventor
by many-one stated that many of life’s
failures are people who did not realize
how close they were to success when they
gave up this quote encompasses my
research experience at OHSU wholly I
once almost gave up on pursuing research
at OHSU because I was scared to ask
questions but because of my sincere
interest in desire to succeed with this
new endeavor I decided to stick with it
even with the hardships that were
present so next time you’re facing
hardships or are on the brink of failure
ask yourself if you’re closer to success
than you may realize
ask yourself what might be possible if
you don’t give up thank you [Applause]
time I was astonished by all the
machinery the large centrifuges fume
hoods pipettes freezers in scientists
running around to safely retrieve their
samples getting to this point was a lot
more difficult however I sent emails to
dozens of professors at OHSU and after a
couple of weeks I received only two
responses both of whom telling me that
they didn’t have enough space time or
resources for me to join their lab while
this was disappointing at first I
decided to keep trying learning more
biology on the way and eventually I got
an email back from a renowned genetics
professor who told me that I should come
meet with him and discuss the
possibility of me pursuing research in
his lab after the hour-long meeting of
discussing ongoing and possible future
projects went well he told me that I
should finally come and try to
contribute to an ongoing project this is
when things got real and more difficult
than before the hard work finally came
around and I discussed the project with
my for the first time with my principal
investigator I was confused on where to
begin thinking that I could figure it
out with the materials and resources
that were given to me I had no idea on
how to approach this project I read
dozens of research papers on my subfield
of study and I felt like I gained in
overall conceptual knowledge of genetics
but I just didn’t know how to apply it
to this new project in front of me I was
scared to ask questions and didn’t know
how to use the tools that were given to
me I went home everyday from the lab for
the first three weeks thinking about how
to overcome this fear of telling my
professor that I didn’t understand but
never had the courage to do so after
recently joining the lab three weeks in
I decided I had to change something I
was not getting everything I could from
this research experience
so one day I walked into my professor’s
office and confessed my lack of
knowledge on the project being a great
mentor instead of telling me what I did
wrong he went through the research
papers that he’d given me in the past
and sent me numerous more presentations
to help me understand the project better
he showed me that even though I had
little experience in scientific research
that I had the dedication to keep trying
and he appreciated my willingness to
come forward and confess my lack of
knowledge
it was the faith and confidence that he
had in me that continued my drive in
scientific exploration and reached my
goal of producing and publishing
research soon after this experience I
became less hesitant to ask questions
not only to him but the other friendly
lab members I became more and more
acquainted with lab equipment being able
to perform more complex techniques by
myself eventually I learned so much from
this experience I was able to perform my
own research on constructing short
synthetic promoters there have been
several hardships in my own research
however during the bacterial
transformation phase one that’s
important to the success of my
methodology the recombinant DNA wasn’t
present and bacterial colonies didn’t
form with no way to go back one step I
had to restart everything this point was
devastating disappointing in
heartbreaking I thought I hit an
unpassable roadblock and I wondered
whether I just wasted my time all along
in the lab in science it often feels
like we’re only rewarded if we’re able
to successfully publish a research paper
with it but after consulting with my
professor I realized that this was not a
complete failure rather an unexpected
hardship that only led me to a new
opportunity to learn and to actually
improve my project when I’ve reflected
upon my journey and tried to understand
what it is about research that keeps me
motivated the answer has not always been
clear research takes
time energy and motivation to try to
continue to finish a project all while
managing the fear of failure then what
is it that keeps me and many others
going in scientific research well the
goal of science is to improve the future
most of us Reacher’s researchers have a
desire to improve and add on to our own
knowledge but also contribute to the
scientific community to better
understand the world and ourselves now
when I look back at it I think it was
extremely gutsy for my professor to
allow me a 14 year old at the time to
join and provide funding for my time in
the lab his belief of giving a high
school student research privileges and a
high class lab is something that is rare
but has allowed me to see the real-world
challenges of failures and hardships and
find a discipline that I truly love in
general many of us try to avoid
hardships and challenges in our life and
this is because we think that failures
have a negative connotation and that we
all have a winning mentality to do
better than our past selves and to do
better than others but the trick which I
use is to actually use these failures
and hardships to improve our future
performance failures are an integral way
and an instrumental opportunity to
actually apply quick learnings and
improve our future of selves this
concept of leveraging failure doesn’t
only apply to science whether you enjoy
literature or art or history or
engineering or any other field we do
things seek to be challenged and learn
because we have a desire in the field we
study I’m not telling you to drop
everything and become a scientist rather
when a new opportunity arises in your
field
take it and remember that failure is a
part of the process the hardships that
you will see will only lead to new
opportunities to learn to actually
improve yourself today I want you to
reflect on why you study in your given
field what you want to see in your
your work and what new opportunities you
will seek in your career Thomas Edison
considered the world’s greatest inventor
by many-one stated that many of life’s
failures are people who did not realize
how close they were to success when they
gave up this quote encompasses my
research experience at OHSU wholly I
once almost gave up on pursuing research
at OHSU because I was scared to ask
questions but because of my sincere
interest in desire to succeed with this
new endeavor I decided to stick with it
even with the hardships that were
present so next time you’re facing
hardships or are on the brink of failure
ask yourself if you’re closer to success
than you may realize
ask yourself what might be possible if
you don’t give up thank you [Applause]
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