Wow. I honestly can’t believe I’ve finally reached the end of the semester - this one seriously felt like an entire decade. This semester is particularly notable in being the first entirely virtual learning experience from home. Despite every day consisting of the same never-ending cycle of eat/grind/sleep in my room, somehow it feels like so much has happened over the past 3.5 months. I’ve experienced my fair share of downs with not too many ups, but through it all, I think I’ve actually grown a lot.
These semester reflections function more like course reviews, with my personal thoughts sprinkled throughout but mainly below in the “Miscellaneous Thoughts” section. While I could probably write a lot more, I didn’t include anything super introspective mainly because I’m too lazy.
Overview
This semester (Fall 2020), my schedule ended up consisting of:
- BIOL 121 (Introduction to Biology - The Molecular Biology of Life)
- BIOL 123 (Introductory Molecular Biology Laboratory)
- BE 200 (Introduction to Biomechanics)
- ENGR 105 (Introduction to Scientific Computing)
- ENGR 299 (Engineering Research - Preparation, Applications, Methods)
- COML 207 (Dostoevsky)
I also started out taking MATH 312 (Linear Algebra), but I ended up dropping it.
BIOL 121 (Introduction to Biology - The Molecular Biology of Life)
Heading into this semester, BIOL 121 was probably the class I was scared of the most. I hadn’t taken any biology class since freshman year of high school (studying for USABO does not count), so I had forgotten a lot of the relevant terminology. I actually tried pre-studying a bit in the summer, but honestly that did not help at all. Also, when I received the syllabus for BIOL 121 a few weeks before the semester started, I couldn’t believe my eyes. With students being so stressed already, someone in the BIOL department thought it would be a fantastic idea to split this course’s previously 3 midterms into 6 midterms. Yes, you read that correctly: 6 midterms, which equates to roughly 1 midterm every other week, on top of a final exam at the end of the semester. How can you call the exams “midterms” when they cover 1/6 of the course?
However, as I reflect on this course now having just taken my final exam yesterday, I thought BIOL 121 was actually handled very well especially considering the virtual circumstances. Lectures were held synchronously on Zoom every MWF from 10-11AM, with recordings always being posted the day afterward. Recitation was held every Monday from 9-10AM and usually involved going over that week’s problem set or the previous exam (I honestly never paid much attention and instead opted to sift through the 1000 emails that get sent Monday morning). The problem sets consisted of questions taken from past exams but were only graded in the sense that each completed problem set earned you a fraction of an extra credit point.
The first half of the course, which covers topics like proteins, enzyme kinetics, DNA replication, transcription, translation, etc. was taught by Dr. Mark Goulian, while the second half, which covers genetics, kinase signaling, cellular traffic, cell cycle and division, etc. was taught by Dr. Michael Lampson. I preferred Dr. Goulian’s style over Dr. Lampson’s, mainly because his lecture slides often contained very descriptive bullet points and figures that detailed everything I needed to know. Conversely, Dr. Lampson sometimes just pasted a picture without any text description, which made it harder to study for exams later when reviewing the lecture slides. Furthermore, Dr. Goulian gave more satisfying answers to students’ questions, whereas Dr. Lampson literally responded every time with “We’ll get to that in a minute” or “Well, we don’t really need to go into too much detail.” Perhaps my biggest gripe about Dr. Lampson’s teaching is that he asked if students had any questions after every lecture slide. Now, I’m all for students learning and clarifying concepts when they’re lost. However, at least 80% of the questions I heard were simply not relevant to what we needed to know for the course. Based off my experience in a normal in-person semester, students usually don’t ask too many questions during class, but something about Zoom has given all these freshmen the confidence to ask 100 questions after every lecture slide. I was actually quite impressed with Dr. Lampson’s professionalism, because I could definitely see him becoming more frustrated with each question, but he seems to be a rather gentle guy so he suppressed his anger well. Anyways, I merely wish Dr. Lampson didn’t stop so often for questions, because the other 99% of the students on the Zoom call just want to learn what we need to know and move on. Students can ask whatever hypotheticals they want in office hours.
As for the exams, I got into a decent groove as the semester progressed and was able to decrease my effort spent studying with each passing exam. It immensely helped that BIOL 121 releases all of its past exams with solutions, so in addition to the many lecture slides, I had many practice questions to aid me in studying (although I only looked at the solutions because I’m a great student). Questions from past exams were surprisingly very important in helping me learn (rather than simply reinforce) concepts, because some questions summarized the main point from certain lecture slides. With previous semesters being in-person, past questions were generally more memorization-based. With this semester being entirely virtual, however, all of our exams were technically open-book and contained more application-based questions (all multiple-choice). I was actually quite impressed by our exam questions, because I had previously thought that biology was entirely just rote memorization. However, our exam questions made me think a lot and integrate numerous concepts together. Overall, I thought BIOL 121 was very well-adapted to the virtual learning experience despite its 6 midterms and final exam. Although I still find biology to be quite boring, I did learn a lot and now have a bit more confidence heading into the medical field.
BIOL 123 (Introductory Molecular Biology Laboratory)
Let me make this point clear: I hate lab courses, and being the companion lab course to BIOL 121, BIOL 123 was no different. With everyone learning from home, the instructors had to mail out lab kits to everybody. I don’t necessarily disagree with the decision to still have students conduct labs at home, but I don’t think I learned much more than I would have had they just provided data for us to analyze.
Anyways, BIOL 123 wasn’t all that much work, but it was annoying nonetheless. A week’s materials were released every Friday morning for us to review asynchronously, and I had to join a synchronous 1 hour meeting every Tuesday at 9AM to go over that week’s lab. Over the course of the week, I then had to conduct the lab and complete a post-lab assignment. Some of the labs were fairly straightforward, but others were exceedingly Chinese and took a lot of time to complete (much more than the normal 3 hours if we were in-person). It certainly didn’t help that the tools were quite jank - some were shockingly good like the homemade gel electrophoresis kit, but most others were very ineffective. Furthermore, I always had a ton of questions while conducting the labs, and having to wait for my TA to respond (Jessica is still a queen though) by email was super time consuming. At least one positive about this course is that they were very lenient with grading, and I do give them major props for doing the best they could given the pandemic situation. Still, I despise lab courses, but unfortunately I’ll be taking another one in BIOL 124 next semester.
BE 200 (Introduction to Biomechanics)
I legitimately don’t know what to make of this course. It was probably the most conceptually difficult one this semester, perhaps even of my entire college experience thus far. Although BE 200 is titled Introduction to Biomechanics, the course is entirely physics and mechanical engineering - there’s really no biology whatsoever. In terms of logistics of the course, we watched the lecture videos asynchronously and attended synchronous recitation every Monday from 4:30-6PM. There were also 7 synchronously group problem sessions held throughout the semester, which were nice in helping me get to know other BE students since I literally don’t know anyone in my class.
The first month was definitely an immense source of stress for me, as I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so lost in a course before. It seriously felt like I had missed every lecture for an entire semester and showed up to take the final exam. However, the difference is that I didn’t miss any of the lectures, and in fact I even rewatched many of them multiple times. Yet I often still had no clue what the homework was asking, even though it was supposed to be relatively “simple” physics like vectors and 3D moments. Perhaps part of my pain can be attributed to the course being taught by Dr. Dustyn Roberts, who is not the usual professor, for the first month. I attended Dr. Roberts’ office hours numerous times during the first month, but she was rather confusing with her explanations because I don’t think she was very familiar with the course. Dr. LeAnn Dourte typically teaches BE 200, but unfortunately she was on maternal leave until after our first midterm. Fortunately, when Dr. Dourte finally returned, the material difficulty decreased by a lot after the first month. The later content consisted of less familiar but surprisingly easier concepts like torsion and bending, although maybe that was because they were more formulaic.
I suppose I should talk about the homework and exam problems now, which I spent so much time on. We had 9 homework assignments and 3 exams (including the final exam) during the semester. I seriously believe that the BE department needs to restructure this course, because the first few homework assignments were so much more involved than the later ones. For example, Homeworks 3 and 4 were worth 80+ points, while Homeworks 5 and 6 were worth 30-40 points. In general, the homeworks were quite intensive and required a lot of thought to solve, which was fine. However, as for the exams, Dr. Dourte said they were designed to take 1.5-2 hours, but I literally took like triple that amount of time. I’m not sure if this was due to the remote semester or the instructors making the exams harder given that they were technically open-book, but I’m actually quite shook because I would’ve legitimately failed if I was limited to only 1.5-2 hours. For example, I took my final exam yesterday and I think I barely got through 2/4 of the questions by the time 1.5 hours had passed. I always spent so much time just trying to understand what the problems were asking, and I had to redo numerous problems because I messed up so often. The exams were fortunately always due at midnight, so I had ample time to check over my work. Still, I’m just very glad to be done with this course, and I hope BE 220 (Biomaterials) isn’t as bad next semester.
ENGR 105 (Introduction to Scientific Computing)
Heading into this semester, I was sort of excited about ENGR 105. It teaches MATLAB, which is a very useful scientific programming language especially for bioengineers. I also generally enjoy programming, although I could never see myself doing computer science as a job), but I hadn’t taken a programming class since junior year of high school (CSE). ENGR 105 consisted of 12 assignments throughout the semester which were actually quite difficult and nuanced. I was able to get by the first few assignments by just relying on my prior programming experience alone, since MATLAB is fairly straightforward and somewhat similar to JAVA and Python. As the semester progressed, however, the work got progressively more time-consuming. It also didn’t help that I literally could not focus during the synchronous lectures held every MWF from 6-7PM via Zoom. I just feel that hearing someone explain code is not very engaging, so I learned pretty much everything by looking through the online MathWorks forums and struggling my way through the assignments. I will give credit to the instructor, Dr. Graham Wabiszewski, who is quite passionate about MATLAB and genuinely cares about his students’ learning experience. He cut out all of the exams from the course due to everything being virtual, which I’m eternally grateful for because I did not want to relive any COPE trauma from High Tech.
In the absence of a final exam, however, ENGR 105 involved a final project, which was a great source of stress and anxiety. Since Graham decided to still give assignments until Thanksgiving, I actually did not have time to start my project until the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, which was 2 weeks before it was due. Therefore, I’m not lying when I say that literally all I did from Wednesday evening to that Sunday was code and sporadically watch Survivor clips on YouTube. As for my project itself, I made a super basic Blackjack game in MATLAB, which was not particularly algorithmically intense. You can actually watch a video of me explaining my project here. My project is the epitome of minimal effort, but after I got to a certain point, I just could not be bothered to work on it anymore (perhaps MATLAB burnout?). If my calculations are correct, I only need a 69/100 to still earn an A in the course since the final project is only worth 25% of my final grade. My project is definitely bad, but I’m somewhat confident that it isn’t failing 68-or-lower bad. However, I haven’t received my final grade yet as of writing this, so my fingers are crossed!
ENGR 299 (Engineering Research - Preparation, Applications, Methods)
ENGR 299 is specifically for the Rachleff Scholars program and is essentially one of those classes where if you turn in the assignment, you’re probably getting an A. There are a bunch of miscellaneous assignments to help “prepare” you for the rigors of engineering research, but it’s mostly just busy work that I didn’t learn much from. The real heart of this course lies in identifying a Penn Engineering faculty sponsor for my research experience next summer. I personally chose to work with Dr. Beth Winkelstein, who happens to be the Deputy Provost at Penn, and her Spine Pain Research Lab. Therefore, with the help of Dr. Winkelstein and my graduate student advisor Sonia, I had to propose a project, which involved completing an NIH Specific Aims Page, literature review, and PowerPoint presentation. I’ll probably elaborate more on my research after next summer when I actually get to work in the lab, but for now, I’ve just been attending lab meetings every Monday with the SPRL group. Returning to the class itself, ENGR 299 was taught by Dr. Brian Chow and operated entirely asynchronously, which was unfortunate in the sense that I would’ve liked to have gotten to know some of the other Rachleff Scholars. Then again, though, I probably would’ve found a way to avoid all social contact like I always do.
COML 207 (Dostoevsky)
Ah, at last, I’ve reached COML 207 and Dostoevsky. Although I would love to do so anytime, I’m not going to elaborate on my love for Dostoevsky here - I think that deserves its own separate blog post later on. COML 207 was taught by Dr. Brian Kim and my TA Helen, who were both so amazing, helpful, understanding, and passionate about Dostoevsky. For the class, we had to complete the readings, make a discussion board post on Canvas, and complete a short mini-quiz. Then, on Thursday from 4:30-6PM, we attended a synchronous Zoom call to go over that week’s reading. Honestly, my only complaint about this course was that there just wasn’t enough time to cover all that I wanted in 1.5 hours, but at least there were extra optional sessions on Tuesday near the end of the semester to go over the longer passages from The Brothers Karamazov. Anyways, this course helped me understand a lot about Dostoevsky’s early career, his return from exile in Siberia, and the last years of his life. Having read The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment previously on my own, it was really cool to see how Dostoevsky developed his famous themes throughout each subsequent novel. I’m admittedly a very slow reader, and there was definitely a somewhat steep learning curve to Dostoevsky, so I took a long time to complete the readings. However, as the semester progressed, I did notice myself improving at comprehending what Dostoevsky was saying at times. For those wondering, our readings were:
- White Nights
- Notes from Underground (trans. Michael Katz)
- The Double and The Gambler (trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky)
- Notes from the House of the Dead (trans. Boris Jakim)
- The Idiot (trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky)
- The Brothers Karamazov (trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky)
I must also mention that I had to write a midterm and a final paper, which made me realize that I hadn’t written an argumentative paper since Agazarian’s class in junior year of high school (I’ll say now that I went to Dr. Kim’s office hours for help a lot). Frankly, writing is very painful. For my midterm paper, I literally spent an entire week trying to motivate myself to get started, and I’d complete all my other assignments first to procrastinate. My approach to writing is rather comprehensive but definitely not time-efficient. I wrote my midterm paper on Notes from Underground, and I first went through the entire book again looking for quotes pertaining to my topic. Then, I laid out the progression of quotes I wanted to hit upon and constructed my paragraphs around those. I suppose one positive from writing this semester is that I’ve finally accepted that the most efficient way to write a paper is to word vomit onto the document and then revise afterward, as opposed to meticulously forming each sentence on the first try. My strategy worked decently well for Notes from Underground since the book is only about 91 pages, and my paper was actually received better than I thought it would be. However, it was more time-consuming doing this again for my final paper on The Brothers Karamazov, which is about 776 pages. Fortunately, my final paper topic was a bit easier to write about (faith vs. doubt), so fingers crossed that I finessed an A in the class! I would take Dr. Kim’s course on Tolstoy if it weren’t for the fact that I’d have to write more papers. I enjoy reading, but not so much writing.
Conclusions
Overall, I’d say that this was the most difficult semester thus far in terms of course load compared to my freshman year experience. I seriously thought that this semester would never end, and I’ve literally been in tunnel vision mode for the past 3.5 months with all the work I’ve had to do. Every day felt identical to each other, and the assignments just seemed to never stop coming. I also noticed a very odd psychological phenomenon in that I was always so paranoid about missing assignments or announcements. I reread documents and checked over my assignment submissions constantly, and I’m not really sure why because I was never this paranoid in the past. Perhaps it’s due to the lack of real engagement in a virtual semester, but fortunately my paranoid seemed to stop right before reading period for finals, which was quite optimal (and ironic?). My productivity definitely suffered as a whole throughout the semester, probably because I no longer experience all of the micro-breaks I’d usually have in studying with my friends in-person. Hopefully this will improve when I return to Philly next semester.
Miscellaneous Thoughts
My health definitely deteriorated with this semester being entirely virtual. Besides taking short walks with my mom around my neighborhood every day, I don’t really get up from my computer all that much. Consequently, I’ve experienced some back pain at times, which is probably attributed to my not-so-ergonomic setup. I had a terrible chair that did not support my back well, and I worked off of my tiny 13” MacBook laptop the entire semester. However, having now gotten a huge 27” monitor, switched to a better chair with more back support, and even changed mattresses, I think I’m gradually improving.
I’m really not joking when I say that I pretty much did not reach out to talk to anyone from college this semester. I messaged a few people as part of ongoing conversations, but I just could not be bothered to set up study Zoom sessions or call people. Therefore, FM and CG’s effectively functioned as my only form of social interaction. Perhaps this is just due to my introverted nature and/or my major Zoom fatigue, but I was honestly so occupied with my work that I didn’t want to be distracted. I also deleted Instagram at the start of the semester, which helped me be more productive but also meant that I literally had no idea what anyone else was up to. Hopefully I’ll be able to interact with more people outside of my family, FM, and CG next semester.
In terms of faith, I’ve been in a rather philosophical/existential mood for several months from reading Dostoevsky, going through Ecclesiastes in CG, and reading Job for my daily devotions. But I’m not sure if I’m ready to talk about that yet as of now. I will, however, talk about a particularly enlightening experience I had about a month into the semester.
I had started a remote research position in Dr. Claire Mitchell’s lab sometime in the middle of August. The work involved some basic neuron tracing in ImageJ, and I was able to keep up with the project for a while. All of a sudden near the end of September, however, my graduate student advisor Keith sent me a ton of cell image stacks that needed to be traced within a few weeks. I attempted to trace a few stacks over the next week or so, but I quickly realized that I was feeling extremely burnt out with my schoolwork also starting to pick up. I was literally working 16+ hours a day and not even making a dent in the number of stacks I had to trace. I felt like I was rapidly losing my mind and my sanity, so with the encouragement of my friend Maria, I contacted Keith at approximately 10:30PM on September 29th and said that I was going to drop my research position. Although Keith was very understanding, I didn’t sleep until about 6:15AM the next morning (I managed to wake up for BIOL 121 lecture still!) mostly because of stress. There was also a huge storm outside that night which was terribly loud, so the wind banged on my window every second. It felt almost like a biblical metaphor, because I realized that the storm within my heart and my mind was causing me to feel extremely restless. I was constantly tormented by all these fears and anxieties about my future, and the stresses of the world were constantly bombarding me from every direction just like the wind on my window. I wasn’t as so much bothered by my failure as I was by the fact that I had quit, which I haven’t really done before.
I incessantly prayed to God that night to give me peace about my decision and hope for the future. I felt like I just needed God to command “Be still!” to the storm within my soul. Although I woke up feeling slightly better after having slept for 3 hours, I don’t think I really reached fully clarity until about a week later when I decided to drop MATH 312 (taking 7 classes was a terrible decision). After taking a BIOL 121 midterm, I had an FM ladders call with my friend Helene where I was just so depressed and sad boi. Despite stating that I wasn’t going to drop math (Helene was also in the same class), after the call ended, I really hated how miserable and negative I was. I pondered about how constantly stressed out I was, as well as how hard it was for me to find rest and sleep at night. In doing so, I realized that I simply wasn’t happy. Therefore, I contacted my other friend Grace, who gave a very touching message that helped me realize dropping math was the best decision for my physical, emotional, and spiritual health.
Anyways, I say all of this because through my experiences this semester, I’ve learned a lot about trusting God’s timing and plan. Before, I was so focused on rushing through life like a speedrun and trying to maximize my experiences along the way. Being an engineering premed student, I felt an enormous pressure to have to do everything, like research, FM, and serving for RCF, while taking a bunch of very difficult classes to satisfy various minors and requirements. However, in dropping my research position and math this semester, I’ve realized that God’s timing and plan are ultimately what reign in this world. I need to learn how to find my true rest in Christ and balance my life to be able to fully live for God. I think I had a hard time recognizing that while God gives us the strength to face any challenges out there, that doesn’t mean every challenge I put myself through is according to His plan. Sometimes I need to take a step back and realign my life direction and heart posture with His. The essence of faith and joy in Christ lies in resting assured in God’s plan and trusting that He will take care of you no matter what along the way. A stumble early on may prevent a greater fall later, and I think my experiences this semester helped me accept that I don’t always need to do more per se. Instead, I should praise God for the peace and solace I already have in Christ. Overall, I’m very thankful that God carried me through this super rough semester. Looking ahead, I hope to appreciate the grace and mercy He has already shown me and remember that happiness is ultimately found in Him.