Spotlight on: BIOG4990: Independent Undergraduate Research in Biology

This week, junior Solveig Van der Vegt writes about her experience conducting undergraduate research as a member of the Fromme Lab. Through the Office of Undergraduate Biology, Solveig and many other Cornell students are able to earn academic credit while also working on their own independent projects.

By: Solveig Van der Vegt '18

BIOG4990 is the class students take to get credit for working in a lab, in my case the Fromme Lab in the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology. Out of all the classes I have taken so far at Cornell, Independent Research has definitely been one of my favorites. First, it provides me with a wonderful opportunity to do research long-term and to see if it is something that I might want to do in the future. Because I have considered academic research as one of the career paths that I may want to pursue, I’ve really appreciated the chance to work in the Fromme Lab and get credit for it. I’ve been able to get a small taste of what it is like to work in a lab doing all kinds of different experiments, including fluorescence microscopy, DNA cloning and fluorescence assays. I’ve also been able to meet people in all different stages of the academic career path. I work directly with a graduate student, but I also have a lot of contact with my lab’s Principal Investigator (PI), the institute technicians, and postdocs. I’ve truly been able to get an inside view of what the academic world is like.

BIOG4990 is also a nice class to take because it allows me to have something different in my schedule without compromising on the amount of credits I’m taking. In between all the lectures and discussion sections that I am in, working in a lab for 10 hours a week is quite refreshing. Of course, I am also taking laboratory courses like Genetics Lab or Experimental Organic Chemistry for my major, but it’s not the same: when I work in the Fromme Lab, I don’t know what the outcome of my experiments is going to be because they have not been performed 300 times before by other students and been extensively tested by TA’s. It makes it more exciting to feel like I’m actually looking for something new that nobody has discovered yet. For me, working in the Fromme Lab through BIOG4990 allows me to contribute to the growing pool of biological knowledge in my own way.

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 bench in the Fromme Lab