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Seeing Tiny Things - A Quick Cryo-EM Course

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The first part of my PhD involves some quick classes on a variety of research techniques that could potentially be of help to my future project, or ones I'm just plain interested in. Considering my fan girl tendencies over those strings of amino acids it makes logical sense I would be drawn to an alternative method in structural biology and so a Cryo-EM masterclass answered my call. This was a pretty hands-on class considering the training required for a lot of the steps. After being shown each piece of the microscope we were also rewarded with a running dialogue for the price of each part, as interesting as these numbers were, the undertones of '....so please don't break this' and 'that's why you don't get to play with it' were quite apparent. Once over our financial shocks we were able to experience sample preparation and I got to repeat a challenge I had difficulty with since my MRes project: attempting to determine where the surface of liquid Nitroge...
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My PhD Application Process

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I went into my Masters knowing I wanted to be studying for a PhD at the end of it and I had already heard the stories of how competitive the application process was for funded projects. With this information and my horrific social anxiety that messes up any kind of interview I was to have, I resigned myself to the fact that this was going to be a tough year. Overall it took me ten applications and four interviews to finally gain a place. Not ten half arsed attempts either, for my first three interviews I had poured weeks of work into presentations that now lie forgotten. With each interview I noticed my confidence and interview ability slowly increasing so I figured this grind was the only way really forward for me. The biggest disappointment was my third interview at my previous undergraduate university, I thought I had nailed it (I did learn I do great presentations) but there always seemed to be a person one step ahead of me. Towards the end of the academic year I resigned myself ...
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And So We Begin...

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So, a little bit about myself, hopefully I can inspire a few people to never settle! I guess the classic route for people doing a PhD in molecular biology would be to have done some science based A-levels, went straight to university and achieved high grades until some lecturers saw potential in you and suggested PhD applications. Well that's not me, and I put a lot of my current feelings of impostor syndrome down to this fact, I'm so grateful where I'm at currently and I'm hoping this gratitude sees me through a lot of the pitfalls during this studentship. I did well at school and came to a crossroads where I could push myself, and do do A-levels in Biology and Chemistry or the route I took, which was certainly a more appealing option, to do a BTEC in Animal Care. It was a great two years that I spent cleaning out animals....can't say I learnt too much useful and a career in research was at the back of my mind. During this I did work experience at West Midland Saf...
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