Prior to coming to Minnesota State University, Mankato (MNSU), I did not really have an expectation as to what “doing research” truly meant; I thought that the research process was really only for those with degrees, or the “scientists,” per say. As a biology major on campus, I quickly heard about some of the research that my professors were performing and how they often had a research team full of eager students. As I learned more about the pre-medical track, the Honors Program, and my major, I quickly sought after educating myself more about research in general. Being a part of the Honors Program really helped me get my feet wet in regard to doing research during my freshman year, and overall, I have learned that there are a lot of important pieces that fit into the puzzle of doing research. I was able to build a strong foundation in all aspects of performing research within the Honors Program, such as evaluating sources, synthesizing information, forming scientific hypotheses, designing experiments, scientific writing, and disseminating my results, all of which I will take with me into my professional career someday.

 

My “career” in research really began in Honors 201 and a couple of my introductory biology courses, like Biology 105, when I learned why research was performed, how to find and use credible sources, how to conduct experiments, and how to report scientific findings. From there, I was able to move into higher level courses with a better understanding of the foundations of research and delved into creating some original research projects.

 

I took Developmental Biology and English 271W, which both challenged me with the task of creating original research projects. This involved the whole process of coming up with a research question, designing and carrying out experimentation, collecting data, and composing a research report using other scholarly articles as references. These experiences overall taught me about how the research process can look as a whole, from start to finish, including working through some procedural setbacks.

 

Moving into the end of my junior year, I decided that joining a faculty research team was something that I wanted to pursue. I spent a couple of weeks reading into some of the professors’ work within the biology and chemistry departments and ended up meeting Dr. Katner, and she welcomed me onto her team that studies Glioblastoma (brain cancer) and Hepatocellular Carcinoma (liver cancer). I was assigned to the Glioblastoma portion of her team, and hit the ground running in the beginning of my senior year for the 2020-2021 school year.

 

While doing research with Dr. Katner, I learned various lab techniques, saw experiments through from beginning to end, learned how to effectively write grants, and presented my research at the Undergraduate Research Symposium here at MNSU and also at the National Conference of Undergraduate Research. Presenting the materials that I spent so much time and effort on with Dr. Katner and the rest of our team was a truly rewarding, yet scary, process, and is an important part of being a scientist.

 

Through all of these experiences, I grew as a scientist. The research competency introduced me to all of the happenings included in performing research, from finding credible sources to carrying out original research and presenting my results. I know that what I have learned will be tremendously useful to me in the future as I endeavor onto further schooling in the medical field and becoming a physician one day.