Things I Have Learnt During My Bachelor's Thesis

Hej hej everybody,

It’s your favourite content creator Shivani back again with a blog. The hot topic today – gathered learnings from my bachelor’s thesis! It feels like just yesterday when I stood by the bed of roses for the first time in front of Campus US, about to start my first year of biomedicine. Time has truly flown as I am now in my third year, doing my bachelor’s thesis, about to graduate next summer. Today, I want to share some learnings, tips and just general growth I’ve had during this time period. For those of you who are curious, I am doing my thesis in the area of neurobiology and cancer biology. Fancy stuff, right? 😉

1. Managing my free time: The thesis period is always quite flexible as there is no fixed schedule, in contrast to when I have lectures. This means that I decide when I run my experiments and when to be in the lab. This whole process has contributed to my time – management skills and learning to be more productive when I have “free time”. During my waiting periods in the lab, I try to catch up with writing my thesis, process data, work with student association business or write blogs, like I am doing right now 😉 That way, I avoid pushing work for later in the day, and I can spend my evenings doing things more personal to me or enjoy some quality time with my friends <3
2. Patience is key: When you work in a lab, patience is such an important virtue. This is because sometimes results go your way and other times, they most definitely don’t. It is super important to not give up or get frustrated but rather to keep trying, or change your approach to the goal.
3. Trust the process: You don’t have to be perfect in the lab, and making mistakes is completely fine. If it isn’t going your way, that’s fine as well, because it eventually will. Hang in there!
4. Ask for help: You don’t have to take up all the burden on your own, it is completely okay to ask for help from your supervisor and assistants in the lab. Watching YouTube videos and reading protocols online is also super helpful. I also recommend watching people doing the experiments so that you get an idea and visualise the experiment yourself.
5. Moving around: When working in the lab, you’ll find yourself restricted to an area, either sitting or standing, so remember to take breaks when you can, walk around, move your body and try to find some time after your lab day ends to exercise or take a walk. This will leave you feeling more refreshed.

These are my learnings. Do you agree? Are you also doing your thesis right now? Let me know below 😀

Till next time my dear readers,

Your favourite blogger 😉

Shivani <3

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