A Moment of Happiness

Johns Hopkins University is often referenced as “America’s first research university,” and was the model for most other research-based institutes of learning in the US. In fact, in the fiscal year 2008 Hopkins performed $1.68 billion in research in just the science, medical and engineering fields. The National Science Foundation has ranked Hopkins #1 for thirty years straight in total Research and Development. So what does this all mean?

It means that Hopkins students have one of the most enriching and available opportunities to participate in research in any field anywhere. The undergraduate education at Hopkins is marked by this opportunity and about eighty percent of undergraduates engage in research during their time at Hopkins. The direct access we have to top researchers in their particular field is unimaginable at most other institutes of learning and so we do a pretty good job to taking advantage of that.

Research spans all spectrums of academic curiosity: English, economics, medicine, art history, politicaltheory, public policy, biomedical engineering, neuroscience, international studies, history of science and technology, biological and natural sciences, English, public health, mechanical engineering, creative writing, etc.

Basically, anything you want to do research in, we have at Hopkins. Further, you don’t have to do research in your major – you can do research in something that interests you.

While research is continuously encouraged at Hopkins, some majors, like Neuroscience, require it. Neuro majors need to complete six credits of research in order to earn their degree. To begin this, this past Intersession I began work at a lab. I work in a lab in the Biological Chemistry department at the Hopkins School of Medicine doing things that science-majors have dreams about. My PI (Principle Investigator – basically the scientist in charge of the lab) is Dr. Michael Caterina, who is an MD/PhD and astoundingly brilliant.

The best thing about my lab is when my PI tells me to do something, I don’t get a generic “mount the slides” or “prepare the solution,” he always makes sure to explain to me why we are doing a specific technique, what we’ve done previously that has made us postulate this experiment will work and what we hope to see from it. And so, when I go about my work I have a sense of being a part of some great scientific process, which is beyond exciting.

I also enjoy the fact that when I study for Nervous Systems or read a Neuroscience textbook, the mechanisms the Caterina lab are researching are basically fudged into one of those “we kinda sorta know what these do, but the possibilities are endless so just know they exist” categories that sometime crop up in a field as new and innovative as Neuroscience.  I’m incredibly fortunate to be a tiny part of a lab and a process that is working to elucidate that unknown in science.

And that feeling of excitement and accomplishment are a part of why the vast majority of Hopkins students participate in and tremendously enjoy research.