Today was the last day of TA responsibilities for the Genetics Lab for me. The whole thing's been a really interesting experience. The last lab session with students was yesterday, and today I went in to sort through the genetic samples that were left over, ran the DNA off the last of the gels, and just cleaned the lab in general. The Professor says that there might be a shortage of lab classes next semester, but hopefully I will be able to get another TA position for the Spring.
The lab itself was a lot of work for the students. In addition to the three long term experiments that the professor had designed for them, they also had to design their own fourth experiment. And in addition to the regular assignments of maintaining a lab notebook, and writing lab reports, they also had to prepare a poster presentation of their group designed experimental results, and then each of the two lab sections had a Poster Session. The first lab section only had three groups, so they just presented one at a time to the class. The second lab section had eleven groups. They ended up doing the session in the hallway, and each group ended up presenting to the professor, and then rotated to at least two different selections of other groups. Some of the other professors and workers in the department also attended this micro-Poster Session. I'd say that these students had their work cut out for them, but that now, after all of that, they're really much more prepared than the average biology student at other Universities.
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