As usual, I never made it to breakfast. And yes, I arrived at the armory classroom again just on time. Today’s lecture was much more chill than the previous ones, it was about the final paper publication process. However, it also reminded me that the ssp program was so close to the end. We had finished all the labs and assignments…and it was time to review and organize all of our hard work over the summer. With the ending of the discussion on the paper publishing competitions (super interesting), I realized that this was the last time we would be in the armory again. No more stealing seats from Brian and Sehyun, no more diet-coke spilling mess, and no more lectures from Dr. Hall and Dr. Das. 🙁 (I was sad at the moment until I saw Dr.Hall’s smiley face when he realized there were no lectures anymore⇩)
During the rest of the morning, everyone immediately dived into the inhibitor design competition. I was scared of the name at first. But when I started on it, this task turned out to be super flexible and enjoyable. Getting more and more skilled in using MOE played an essential role in this final task. I was so glad that I was not one of the people who hated MOE otherwise, I would hate this assignment so much. Big shout out to my groupmate Yuvan, who always warned us of the worst in advance so that every result we got was actually better than we expected. And another shoutout to my groupmate Julia, who was constantly being optimistic about everything we did. My group, like all other groups, tried so hard to twist around and add random stuff into the structure but didn’t progress a lot. I guess this is also what is precious about ssp—the waiting time full of struggle before success. To the -10 affinity score that we got today, I would respond with a quote from Yuvan: “We trust.”
The day ended with a fantastic tour of the Biomedical Engineering Department at Purdue. This was the first time that I actually got to see every college classroom, wet lab, and maker lab and got to know what type of research was going on in this place. We got to visit places where so many different possible great ideas may come to live and impact our society; I believed not only me but all my ssp peers, had a better understanding of college and biomedical engineering/biochemistry fields, and started to think deeper about our own interests in this field. I was so grateful for joining ssp and meeting with this big family. Time flew, and it was almost time to say goodbye. But ssp never ends, and I can’t wait to see where everybody ends up with.
大家好, hiii, my name is Jianing (Julia), a rising senior from the Bullis School in Potomac, Maryland. This is also my fifth year studying in the US. I enjoy all kinds of sports, such as volleyball, surfing, and swimming. Music also plays a crucial part in my life. I have been a member of the choir for almost 11 years.
