Week 1 - 6/5/2017

Week 1

Me standing in front of the lab building and sign

The door to the lab

The wet lab

The pH scale machine

The view of the lab from across the street

It was the first week of my internship and I was not sure what to expect. I had just finished my first year of college, and had taken about a two week break to get settled at home. I have never had a 9-5, Monday-Friday job before, so this was new territory for me. I knew that my Magellan would be a lot different from many others--after all I am staying in the United States. But I also knew that it would be a worthwhile experience. Already in my first week I was exposed to many lab practices, protocols, rules, and regulations that I had never thought of before.

During the first week, I went through training about animal care, how to handle animals, laboratory safety, and the ethics of animal testing. The lab that I am working with completes studies on rats and fish. I had not been added to protocol yet, so a lot of my first week was watching what the lab technicians do and helping out with small tasks like making cages. To me, this was the perfect way of settling into my job as a lab assistant because I really got to observe the method and type of work the technicians did.

The two most fascinating parts of my week was making nicotine for the self-administration rats and being able to dissect rats for toxicology studies. I made the nicotine in the lab alongside a fellow assistant after being taught once and walked through it by one of the lab technicians. I really enjoyed this because I felt like I was finally being able to apply what I had learned in my chemistry labs to something useful in the work world. We had to test the pH of the solution and adjust it to be just right by using NaOH and HCl solutions. It was really fun because I was able to use a digital pH detector instead of paper!

It also enjoyed learning how to dissect the spleen and brain out of rats, because I took an anatomy and physiology class in high school and dissected cats. At first it was a little bit tricky, but after observing some dissections and being walked through a few, I got the hang of it.

My first week was definitely very rewarding, because I learned a lot about how labs operate and all of the protocols and guidelines that go into research. I was also happy the I was able to survive my first week of work in the adult world! I know that I will learn a lot more throughout this internship and I am very grateful for the opportunity to complete it.