Hi my name is Charlie and I am a graduate student in the Cole Collins Lab
at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. I study antibiotic resistance and
bacteria and currently am working on methods to combat that antibiotic resistance and delay
the acquisition of resistance in dangerous pathogens. I was born in China, and at the
age of 3 my parents and I left China and actually moved to Germany, Munich. In 2003 I came here
to the states, and that is when I started Americanize school and I went to college in
the states. In Germany I was actually kind of a mediocre student, grades weren't that
good. But then when I came here, I don't know why but somehow I just got very motivated.
I guess the major difficulty during this period was actually the language. So having just
moved here, I had no trouble really with science, math and stuff. But for the writing intensive
classes like AP European History or English Literature, it was a little bit more of a
challenge. I took organic chemistry in college, kind of because I registered as a bio-chem
major, and that just really hooked me into science. I joined a lab in college, did almost
three years of research at the lab; and that is really what sold me on becoming a researcher.
Our lab I would say is a medium size lab, we have roughly give or take 10 people including
rotation students. The people here come from very diverse backgrounds. Some are full PHD's,
other are MDPHD, some people are veterinarians. Our professor is a physician scientist so
he has a MDPHD so he in addition to doing research sees clinics at the hospital. The
atmosphere is incredibly collegial, it's a really teaching oriented lab; so everyone
helps each other out, no one is afraid of asking questions. Whenever you have a problem
you can just go to your next door neighbor and just say, "Hey, I'm working on this problem,
could you please help me out?" So it's very collegial, laid back atmosphere. We joke around
a lot, but we also do really good science. One major goal that I have, or would like
to see progress is that at this stage we have a major problem trying to combat antibiotic
resistant organisms. So what this lab does, we investigate alternative methods of combating
antibiotic resistance, specifically we want to slow down the acquisition of resistance.
When you look at old pictures of scientists, they are typically male, typically white,
and that aspect of things have changed tremendously. Nowadays I think science is a diverse field.
You have people from all backgrounds, just look at our lab, people think science is very
homongonous, people are like these nerdy type people and that's not true. The other misconception
I would like to address is that there is somehow out there this misconception that to be a
scientist you have to be incredibly smart or like a super genius to even make it. That
is also absolutely not true. Obviously being smart is a plus, but there is so much more
than that; persistence, hard work, creativity. The ability to use your hands, which is something
many people don't appreciate. For a person who wants to get into science they should
be encouraged by this, because it's not like one single factor that determines whether
or not you will become a scientist or even do well in research, or many different things.
Approach a lab, and just ask if you can just spend some time working there and observe
how scientists interact and work. I think that is invaluable and certainly helped me,
and I know of many others it has helped. The other thing about research I wanted to say
is doing science and working at a lab is not just sitting at a bench and doing mindlessly
doing experiments. There are many other aspects of doing science that can sometimes distract
you from occasional failures in the lab. A lot of the people teach, in addition to that
you can go to talks, you can write papers, you can travel. So, even though when things
are not working you have these others things to potentially take your mind off the problem
for awhile then you can come back with renewed energy and so on. I think being a researcher
is incredibly rewarding on many different aspects. First and foremost, you get to work
with some of the most amazing and talented individuals you will ever meet. Second of
all, you get to expand human knowledge. Some of that human knowledge may be used to help
other people; which is from a personal satisfaction point of view, it just feels good. And finally,
you get to do experiments. You get to try cool things, use techniques, operate interesting
machines, and stuff and you get paid to do that. So, if you like that kind of work and
get paid for it that is kind of a great career to have. So I can only encourage people to
get some lab experience, some research experience, and see if that is a type of environment that
feel comfortable with. If that does that's great.}