I would say that the main thing that strikes me about my workplace is how big it is. Not only is the Salk Institute really big, with over 20 labs under its umbrella, the lab I'm in is huge as well. It has a ton of people, including grad students, and some really interesting scientists. For instance, I met Roger Bingham earlier today, a co-founder of The Science Network (a collection of online video series about various scientific topics). Also, I've noticed that the lab is very diverse. I've heard multiple languages being spoken, and even talked with my mentor about diversity in science (something I'm very interested in).
The lab as a whole works with the brain's vision system - our perception of the world around us. The work I will be doing is in psychophysics, which is, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the "study of quantitative relations between psychological events and physical events or, more specifically, between sensations and the stimuli that produce them." I will be creating and programming the stimuli for an experiment, and then mapping the data from the experiment and coming to a conclusion. So far, I've started reading up on the coding language I'm going to be using, MATLAB, and some math I'm going to need to know. One of the things that struck me about the work I'm going to be doing is that I'm going to be doing a lot of coding, something I didn't really think would be necessary here. According to my mentor, though, there is a good amount of coding in science. As I said, I'll be learning MATLAB, so I'll be able to see exactly what its applications are.
Something I'm excited for is learning more about neuroscience, and how the brain works. This is a topic that has always interested me, though it has always been too complex for me to understand. I hope this internship helps me to understand some of the more technical, difficult to understand parts of neuroscience. Something I'm worried for is not having enough to do through the day, and just sitting around wasting time. I'm also worried that I won't be able to learn MATLAB in just four weeks, and that I'll have to settle for a less interesting product because I wasn't able to program anything better.
Either way, I know I'll have a great time learning what I can here. Wish me luck!
The lab as a whole works with the brain's vision system - our perception of the world around us. The work I will be doing is in psychophysics, which is, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the "study of quantitative relations between psychological events and physical events or, more specifically, between sensations and the stimuli that produce them." I will be creating and programming the stimuli for an experiment, and then mapping the data from the experiment and coming to a conclusion. So far, I've started reading up on the coding language I'm going to be using, MATLAB, and some math I'm going to need to know. One of the things that struck me about the work I'm going to be doing is that I'm going to be doing a lot of coding, something I didn't really think would be necessary here. According to my mentor, though, there is a good amount of coding in science. As I said, I'll be learning MATLAB, so I'll be able to see exactly what its applications are.
Something I'm excited for is learning more about neuroscience, and how the brain works. This is a topic that has always interested me, though it has always been too complex for me to understand. I hope this internship helps me to understand some of the more technical, difficult to understand parts of neuroscience. Something I'm worried for is not having enough to do through the day, and just sitting around wasting time. I'm also worried that I won't be able to learn MATLAB in just four weeks, and that I'll have to settle for a less interesting product because I wasn't able to program anything better.
Either way, I know I'll have a great time learning what I can here. Wish me luck!