I am in my first quarter of my freshman year of undergrad at UC Davis and am a student in the course-based undergraduate research First-Year Seminar with the Eisen lab, studying the microbiomes of nectar. Previous to this class, the only lab experience I had were the typical high school labs for my chemistry and …

  SOCIAL MEDIA MINI PROJECT: BLOG POST As a first year Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior major at UC Davis, I had calculus, biology, and an Asian American cultural studies class on my schedule for the fall quarter. However, I wanted to also try a seminar, to get some credits but also learn something new for …

“Don’t mess up,” One of my classmates taunted at me, “It’s gotta be perfect!” At this moment, I had my pipette tip stuck into a buffer solution attempting to draw up a precise amount while simultaneously disregarding any comments coming my way. Before joining this class, I had very limited lab experience. Any prior experience …

Failure is an Option: Not many people sit down in a lab and expect to hear that they can make mistakes, no problem. Or that, yep, the experiment was a bust. Better yet, lets google the protocol and see what other scientists are doing out there. Well that is just what I got in FRS …

Blog Post about Our Freshman Seminar University of California, Davis offers a Freshman Seminar class that introduces students to the world of biotechnical science by mimicking what is performed in a research lab. However, it is not just a simple seminar class—it is a lab in which we have the opportunity to practice skills through …

In all honesty I joined this class without even knowing what this first year seminar was about. On the first day of class, after google mapping and asking people, I finally made it to the academic surge building and then to the lab room. From what I heard most first year seminars are in a lecture hall …

I came into UC Davis knowing that I was determined and very interested in getting involved in some type of research. It is very hard to want to do something but not know where to start, especially when you’re a person like me who has never been involved in research. My school didn’t teach any …

I decided to join this class because I wanted to experience what it was like to participate in a research class where I could learn and discover what a research lab is all about . I came in with a fair amount of knowledge on how to do some of the planned experiments such as …

I was skeptical about joining this class when I first got the email advertising it. I wasn’t sure whether it was worth adding to my workload when I knew nothing about what to expect from the class. I ended up deciding to take the leap of faith, knowing that I wanted to be involved in …