SSP 2022 at PUR-G - SSP International

See you again – Nandini M.

summersc — Sat, 30 Jul 2022 00:48:19 +0000

I still remember the first day of SSP vividly. Walking to ABE half asleep at 7 am, messing with the chemostats for the first time, and also hurriedly writing the first blog post about 30 minutes before the deadline (sorry Sunita!). Back then I had no idea what to write, and funnily enough, 6 weeks later, I’m in the same position. Despite now having hundreds of pictures, quotes, and memories at my disposal – there is honestly no way I can encapsulate how amazing these 39 days have truly been within one blog post.

I don’t know how I would even begin to express the collective delusion that came with late night labs, the joy that came from karaoke-ing to the top of our lungs in the lecture hall, or the endless laughter that came with obsessing over webtoons and cows (nope, I will not be elaborating).

Of course there have been ups and downs throughout this program, but just like the antibiotic resistant bacteria we’ve been studying these past two months, I like to think that we adapted and rose past the obstacles that were thrown at us. In the end, we evolved past just being a group of 24 learners, but 24 friends that I know will be there for each other no matter what comes.

It’s amazing how in the short span of 6 weeks, I already feel like I’ve known these people for years. Saying goodbye was honestly one of the hardest things I’ve had to do, but I also know that this isn’t the end, and that we’re all going to go on to accomplish amazing things that I can’t wait to witness. In the wise words of our favorite karaoke song these past couple days – we’ll tell each other all about it when we see each other again

About me – Hi, I’m Nandini and I’m from Chandler, Arizona. When I’m not sobbing over SSP being over, you can find me doing speech and debate, reading, or playing Stardew Valley!

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End of a story, beginning of many others – Shravani D.

summersc — Thu, 28 Jul 2022 22:56:40 +0000

Last full day of SSP!
I have too many thoughts right now to write down but here is a scrambled mess of bits and pieces of all
the emotions I felt today. I woke up all panicked this morning, wondering how long I have to get ready
and speed walk to ABE. We discussed how we can improve the experience for future SSP participants.
Eemah gave us an amazing lecture about her journey in research, which was also filled to the brim with
the cutest photos of her dog

We then proceeded to the last lunch at the Memorial Union. Bittersweet just like my coffee

As the after lunch drowsiness set in, we completed a few more surveys and made sure our laptops didn’t have any of that embarrassing history left. After that, wewalked back half crying and singing Photograph by Ed Sheeran to our dorms to change for the final moments.

After one last dinner at Wiley’s, we started our closing ceremony with a group photoshoot, posing with
the iconic “DO NOT COME”. And just like that it hit me that we were almost done- the 39 days just flew
by.

We decided on pulling an all nighter together and gathered in the Great Hall and enjoyed our last night
together- camping out in the rain, karaoke, late night volleyball and frisbee, and talking our hearts out.

I connected with these people in a way I didn’t know was possible. Girlies, I wish our paths cross
someday. I love you guys so much and I’m grateful I got to spend these 6 weeks with y’all.

I started out very confused and lost but here I am, on the flight back home- having a mini sob session
watching the video created by our TAs.

Love you Helen, Sunita, Logan, and Emma! <3

About me:

I’m Shravani Dhawane from Nagpur, India and when I’m not busy procrastinating, you can find me
reading, cooking, or vibing to yet another playlist (if you’re reading this, please send some song recs
ASAP).

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(You’re) We’re Done – Neha C.

summersc — Thu, 28 Jul 2022 14:38:30 +0000

It feels like a big weight on my shoulders to do this program justice through this penultimate blog post. As the program of numerous firsts and lasts, this little bubble that we’ve created seems timeless up until these last moments of reality. I’m not sure how exactly we made it through but in an attempt to stay sane, here’s a little walkthrough of our final full day in the SSP Genomics program:

We started off our day at 8 am with a little feedback session with Dr. M. As the first participants of the Genomics program, it was important to provide honest feedback on the program this year. Given how sleep deprived we were, the only insight we were really providing was that they probably shouldn’t have had the important lectures at 8 am.

After that we heard a lecture from one of our beloved TAs, Emma on everything from her dog to a robotic dragon.

This all culminated in our last day at the Agricultural and Biological Engineering building- the home of our labs, lectures, and karaoke sessions. We all filtered out slowly in the afternoon, taking time to write cards to staff, turn in our computers, and take in the empty spaces.

We closed out the night with our closing ceremony replete with parting sentiments and applause. After that we all hung out as a group around the dysfunctional fountain outside the dorm buildings until 1 AM reminiscing on anything and everything. As I sit among my newly found friends I feel like I’ve known these people for years. I’ve been living in denial about leaving tomorrow but in acceptance of the fact that I may never forget these small moments. I’m not good with endings so I’ll just say good morning – since this blog post is technically late and it’s 3 AM.

About Me:

Hey, I’m Neha Chelamkuri and I’m from Frisco, Texas! On the off chance I’m not reading a book, you can find me devouring a bar of dark chocolate, at the gym, or learning more about mosquitoes and infectious diseases. Talk to me about anything but country music.

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Beginning the final countdown – Audrey A.

summersc — Thu, 28 Jul 2022 14:29:20 +0000

It’s officially cram season at SSP, the time when the clacking of computer keys echo off the walls with no sign of slowing down. That’s right, our final posters were sent out this afternoon for printing and our final manuscript is due tomorrow at 11:30 am. Our TA’s can testify to the chaos they witnessed in the Honors South lobby this morning; twenty teenagers sprawled across four sofas of varying sizes, spilling over the armrest and onto the carpeted floors. I woke up at 10:30 am, despite my 7:50, 7:53, 7:58, 8:02, and 8:08 alarms screaming in my face (I involuntarily become deaf some mornings I guess), to the realization that we had a poster to put together in two and half hours. I don’t remember what happened in the next 150 minute besides the fact that it was filled with a flurry of panic and frustration at Google Slides.

Here’s our final poster though, so maybe it paid off

SNEAK PEAK FAST FORWARD IN TIME

When the figurative 1 pm clock tower chimed and we hit submit, an odd mix of confusion, elation, and silence after the chaos hit me like a truck. I honestly didn’t know if I was supposed to sob, cheer, or sit there just to take it all in. We just turned in our poster, the final result of 5 weeks here at SSP. These emotions swirled through my head while I ate Chinese takeout in the South lobby (thank you Purdue Biochem <3), and they only intensified on the walk to Target. Every week, our group recharged by singing pop songs on the walk to target before buying a cart full of snacks. Now, we were doing it for the last time. A day full of lasts feels odd, as if each experience is a flashback of all the previous ones. The last time we bought a new nail polish color, the last time we snatched the last box of raspberries, the last time we grabbed boba from the shop next door.

It’s crazy to think that I, a seventeen year old girl from a small school in San Diego, California, am at Purdue University studying antibiotic resistance alongside a community I’ve grown to call my second family. The 24 of us have gone through everything together; from grabbing coffees from Starbucks to struggling through the weekly problem sets to belting our hearts out to to a pop song at the end of a long day to cramming our last revisions on our manuscripts (which we still had to do after our Target run), these people who were strangers just weeks ago have become some of my closest friends. There are times when I am astounded at how intelligent my peers are, yet they are all constantly willing to offer help to each other, whenever and wherever. The SSP community feels like home. That’s the only way I can put it. In the span of 5 weeks, we’ve created volumes of moments to look back on, and I can only hope the last week passes slower than the past couple. That’s all from me

About me:

Hi, my name is Audrey An and I’m from San Diego, California. Beyond STEM, my favorite things to do are debate, volleyball, and working out at a nearby gym.

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Bittersweet taste better on chocolate chip cookies – James Y.

summersc — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 03:50:34 +0000

Today was the 2nd to last full day at SSP. Richard Bowdon wasn’t kidding when he said SSP would fly bye. From all the stress this morning as manuscripts were turned in (with ⅓ of the program pulling all-nighters…) and the joy we felt when it was over to the sadness with realization when the talent show ended that we only have one full day left. Although today isn’t the last day, I’ll miss the karaoke nights, the running to lunch for walk-ons, the late night ramen, and the inside jokes we have with all the participants and TA’s (do not come). Below are some pictures from today which will forever be engrained in my head <3

About me: I’m James Yang, I turned 17 today for a fun fact, and I attend Carmel High School, IN. In my free time I like to binge Cdramas, listen to nostalgic songs (thanks to andrew’s playlist), and watching cooking videos.

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Baseball Night – Miranda Q.

summersc — Mon, 25 Jul 2022 03:58:15 +0000

Today was a bittersweet day because we went on our last field trip of SSP: a baseball game at the nearby Loeb Stadium! We headed there around dinner time and immediately flocked to the concession stand for some good old-fashioned hot dogs, nachos, chicken strips, french fries, and tiny pizzas. As we ate, the baseball game started. It was between the Lafayette Aviators and the Champion City Kings, which was fun because we got to exercise some of the West Lafayette pride that we’ve acquired over our time here at Purdue. Our cheers were definitely part of the reason the Aviators won the game Spending such a casual evening together cheering for the same team was a lovely example of how the 24 of us, despite coming from wildly different places and lives, have shared the same goals, struggles, and jokes over these past 5 weeks…we’re leaving soon, but we’ll always share this experience of being the pioneers of SSP Genomics!

Day to night at the baseball field:

About me:

Hi! I’m Miranda from Montgomery, New Jersey. Outside of school I love being with my friends, singing in Princeton Girlchoir, playing the violin, watching TV, taking pics of my dog Marble, and doing Science Olympiad. In general, I love working with my hands and building stuff, and my favorite subjects are math and bio!

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Flower garden and Pizzas – Michael T.

summersc — Sun, 24 Jul 2022 03:11:03 +0000

Today was a nice change of pace, as we didn’t have to go to ABE for labs and lectures. As a result, I slept until 11, getting one of the first full nights of sleep I’ve had this entire program. I spent much of the day relaxing, which included procrastinating on my project due in two days (whoops), and playing Codenames with the rest of the program. We had an outdoor dinner, eating pizza (never missed New Jersey more than when eating pizza in Indiana) and ice pops. A group of us also went around the campus, and visited the flower garden. The program is almost over, and it’s starting to hit a lot of us, so having a day to just relax with people was a nice change of pace.

About me:

I’m Michael Tepperman, a rising senior from Biotechnology High School in New Jersey. Outside of SSP, I’m active in the New Jersey Technology Student Association and my schools academic team. I love reading and taking naps.

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The Final Stretch – Beto A.

summersc — Sat, 23 Jul 2022 03:30:48 +0000

It hasn’t felt like I’ve been here at SSP PURG for 33 days. To think that for 33 days, I have eaten at the Wiley Dining Court, walked to the Agricultural & Biological building, and slept at the Honors College dorm: unbelievable. If I told the Beto from a few months ago, the one who wasn’t sure if he would get into any summer programs, that I would do all of this in a place hours away from home during the summer, that Beto wouldn’t believe me.

Yet here I am and here I have been living in the moment. I know that there have been moments during the program of that same disbelief that the Beto from a few months ago would have had, but my fellow participants and I have persisted. Here it is: the final stretch.

The wet labs have finished, the confusing workshops on bioinformatics have concluded, and the karaoke/ramen sessions will soon end. All we need to do is write that pesky paper that we will rewrite again and again (and also the scientific poster –_–).

So before we get to the point where we all cry and promise each other we’ll always keep in touch, I want to appreciate everything we’ve done so far here at Purdue. But I also think I’m required to talk about everything we did today, so here is a quick run down.

This Friday, we all worked on editing our papers and posters, but at the end of the day to make the most of our last Friday here at SSP, we had a little pizza party and played frisbee for a bit.

There, back to our scheduled programming. Let’s sit back in retrospect and appreciate what the campus has had to offer at our stay here with SSP.

Our lovely lab. The lab where chemostats, PCRs, and gels have failed. The lab with rolling chairs, aseptic technique, and missing micropipettes. I’ll miss being screamed at for drinking water in the lab and forgetting to turn the sterno on during protocols.

The cute little yellow beetle that’s always been there on the walks to ABE.

ABE itself. I hope they can someday fix the sinks there, but overall 10/10 – everyone should check out the tractor simulator down the hall.

The weird statues we pass by on our walk to the Union for lunch.

The scooters that were sadly banned the first week of the program. Everybody knows I would have used them daily.

Try to spot the bunny! These are all over campus

What are you doing here Bobblehead Purdue Pete!?!?

Running Up That Hill – Kate Bush. Am I the only one that sees a grandfather clock here?

Lastly, an appreciation for the flower garden that has helped me relax on the more difficult days here at SSP. I truly think I’ve found the best place to read on campus.

Sure, the Purdue campus doesn’t match the vibes that the castles at IU do, even so, I still have grown to love the place that I’ve lived in for 33 days.

About Me:

Howdy, again.

My name is Beto Arguelles and I am from McAllen, Texas. I love swimming, the outdoors, and visiting the beach. If you ever want to visit a cool beach, try South Padre Island, Texas – who knows, you might even see Elon Musk there.

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7 Days Left – Jay K.

summersc — Thu, 21 Jul 2022 03:04:14 +0000

Sitting at my lab bench, pipettes and microcentrifuge tubes littered across the surface, I clack away at my keyboard to the beat of “Baby” by Justin Bieber. Do I hate this song? Yes. Does it matter in the lab next to my Genomics peers? Absolutely not. As long as we can all mumble along to the lyrics, shake our heads in coordination with the energizing beat, and (try to) identify antibiotic resistance encoding genes hidden deep within millions of DNA bases, then I would consider the night – as well as all of the soon-to-conclude Summer Science Program in Genomics – a complete success.

Thinking back to what we did today, it all blurs together in a haze of lectures, writing sessions, and lab procedures. We started the day with a lecture by Dr. M about scientific paper revision; ironic because he’s been the person ripping apart all of our papers. Figuratively, of course, and as he reassured us, his extensive feedback all comes from a place of care and faith in our scientific and writing abilities. Frustrating as it may be when every sentence of the paper you spent countless hours on has feedback on it – you know that once all comments have been addressed, your paper and writing abilities will be all the better for it.

After learning about the process of paper revision, we checked in on the results from our Polymerase Chain Reaction lab the day before. Effectively, we replaced certain genes of our bacterial DNA with potentially mutated versions of the same genes. This was the second big step in verifying what we found in our genomic analysis. Unfortunately, about halfway through the process, many found that their samples did not meet the quality specifications – this was expected though, as this was the first time this experiment had been run. The setbacks did, however, prompt another late night lab session – which although sounds ill-fated, like most SSP Genomics work sessions, became another productive round of karaoke.

Overall, I found today to be a wonderful showcase of what SSP truly is. It is a time to do intense work, like the bioinformatics I was running in the picture below, but it is also a time to have fun with your peers – collaborating on projects and harmonizing to songs.

Hi everyone

My name is Jay Khemchandani, and I’m from Orlando, Florida – the home of Disney World, Universal, and way too many alligators. Apart from the classroom, I can be found vibing with friends, riding my bike, or listening to all kinds of music genres most people haven’t even heard of – that is, before I curate playlists to introduce them to the soulful beats of Nujabes and the lyrical genius of Madvillian.

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Gel Electrophoresis and Karoke – Nosa I.

summersc — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 17:13:34 +0000

Today we got our DNA back from the PCR setup we completed and got ready for Gel Electrophoresis!!! We have practiced this earlier in the program so there were no setbacks encountered, but I will say one word that we have all learned to hate from mixing the stain: “bubbles.” Afterward, we had lunch, and then we had a guest speaker! Mr. Blaise Aguera y Arcase from Google! He gave a fascinating lecture on Artificial Intelligence and his hopes for the future of the field. He had a funny portion of his lecture where he had us help him act out a conversation researchers had with LaMDA. Plus, some of us got to practice a new language with the A.I.

Gel Electrophoresis Box Results

Aside from the booked day of activities from working on our final papers, we still found time to enjoy some of our final moments here at Purdue with our Lecture Karaoke! By karaoke, I mean full blown-out concert-level performances. After dinner between the Galaxy Work and reading through ALLL of the comments on our introductions and materials & methods section, we decide to partake in a fun destressor. Karaoke! Anything from Taylor Swift, One Direction, to Imagine Dragon is fair game to showcase all of our musical capabilities… or lack thereof. You can ask any one of our TAs… they loveeee our singing. With seven days left, I hope everyone can look back at these “midnight” memories with an appreciation for our hard work and our ability as a group to come together to lift morale!

A cute photo of the Group made results method

About Me:

Howdy! I’m Nosakhare and I’m a Nigerian American Student from Houston, Texas. My favorite classes have been College Chemistry course and College Medical Terminology. Outside of academia, I’m a huge television and music lover. I am so excited to be at SSP because it’s helped expose me to the life of scientific research.

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