New IBH Kids Coming In (Matt Grobis)

Hello!

So interviews for IB Honors are this week and I'm excited to see some fresh faces excited about biology :-) . This semester's been going well; I'm working in the Sears research lab and taking IBH and orgo labs so pretty much any day of the week 1-5pm I'm in some lab, haha. It's good though. At yesterday's lab meeting, the post-doc Lisa talked about this really interesting project idea she has regarding the evolution of mammalian hearing. Depending on the type of work she'd be doing, there's a chance I'll be joining her soon. I'm really excited... besides that, though, I'm learning lab techniques like in-situ hybridizations to analyze the opossum embryos and I'm learning to manage the opossum colony in the basement. That's one on the right if you're curious.

The longer I'm in IBH, the more I love it. The small class size can't be stressed enough. It's amazing. U of I is a huge place and it's hard to feel connected to the people around you when you see them for one semester in one of your classes and then never see them again. In IB Honors, though, I see the same people MWF every week for hours, and the core is extensive enough that I see them in pretty much all my other classes too. It makes U of I feel much smaller when you're working on that tough orgo problem set with your lab partners or comparing labs that look interesting or just seeing these people on the Quad. You can't help but become close because of all the time you end up spending with them. And everyone in IBH is so interesting... you don't leap into this major without loving biology (hopefully!), and so everyone has something interesting to add to a conversation. During last Wednesday's lab, some IBHers and I got into a discussion on the global warming "debate" (more so why some people - particularly those receiving funding from companies who would suffer from stricter emissions regulations - are taking such measures to deny global warming), possible evolutionary explanations for a belief in God, and even just our favorite books. For a school as enormous as U of I, this keeps me sane.

Well, I better get going. And to any students interested in IBH that are reading this before next week's interviews: good luck! Just relax and let your love for biology shine through.

-Matt

Into a new semester... (Matt Grobis)

Hi prospective IBH students!

After a long winter break to digest everything that had happened last semester, and after almost three weeks into this semester, I finally feel ready to contribute something meaningful here.

IB Honors is amazing. I'm in the perfect major. It's a huge challenge but you're in an environment that will help you achieve your goals. I've learned that IBH makes scientists. In other biology classes, you learn a lot about a certain topic. You go to lecture, listen, memorize facts and learn theories that coordinate those facts, and then you get tested and hopefully walk away with some of that information sticking around. In IBH, though, you're not only taught the facts - you're taught to evaluate them for yourself and to think critically. We read scientific articles last semester not just to learn something but to look at what we had previously learned and evaluate the information in a new context. And this semester, we learned about glycolysis and the kreb's cycle over two days in a really thought-provoking, step-by-step analysis of WHY this is happening, not just what was happening. We had to really think about every step of the process and not just memorize them. This, I feel, is how biology should be taught - not memorized from a book, but processed, challenged, and then finally laid to rest.

One bit of advice, though: IB Honors is amazing, no doubt. But as is the case with any time commitment, make sure you have the time to devote to it. IB, Orgo, and calc II last semester was really, really hard. I had a long and painful semester with those 12 credit hours alone (not including the psych class I took, which was minimal work compared to those behemoths) and I couldn't fully devote myself to orgo or calc. This semester, I cut it back quite a bit and I am much happier. I'm finding time to write creatively, devote myself to the lab I recently joined, and write meaningful lesson plans for the karate classes I help teach. Just having some breathing room makes a big difference. If you can handle a tough schedule, by all means go for it. Just know that IBH is going to take up quite some time outside of the 11-12 MWF and 1-5W :-)

Well, I better get going. In 7.5 hours I'm expected at Morrill to get trained to handle animals so I can start taking care of the possum colonies for my lab. Hope things are well with you, whoever is reading this. Good night!

-Matt

New Semester, New Tactics

Hi! This is the first post of Darcy Ross, a sophomore in the IB Honors program. To the left is a picture of an owl in flight, effortlessly gliding through the winter air. I find it inspiring, when all I want to do is hibernate through the winter.

Let me start out by saying that over one semester, IBH has shifted my course in life quite drastically and pointed me toward opportunities previously unfathomable. Perhaps even more significantly, the people in this program, both faculty and students, have served to fuel my enthusiasm about biology and the places it is taking me. IBH is a place where ideas take wing to the promised land of reality, and I am ever grateful for it.

That said, IB 270 rocked my world. The amount of work I put into that class, especially when it came to the Discovery Project, was orders of magnitude more than anything I had previously ŭndertaken. This was partly because of the challenges it inherently presented, and partly because I loved it so much that I would rather spend time on IB than on my Japanese or Orgo classes. Organic Chemistry in particular is a selfish beast, and retaliated against my neglect quite fiercely.

This semester, I seek a more balanced schedule. I decided to push physics back a semester, leaving me with only 13 credit hours (gasp!). I wanted to excel in my courses and spend more time in a lab (gaining some more credits, thankfully) so that I could start work on an independent project soon. That's what I told my parents, at least. It is all true, but I am also exploring a philosophy that I've often enjoyed reading about from the Study Hacks blog. Study Hacks is written by Cal Newport, MIT student and now post-doc, who investigated the study habits of straight-A students.

The main idea I'm trying to follow is his Zen Valedictorian philosophy. His summary of the philosophy:

If you understand…

• your interests and values,
• the psychology of impressiveness, and
• how to be productive and study efficiently,

then you can construct a student lifestyle that is…

• relaxed and free of chronic stress,
• intellectually engaging,
• wildly social and exciting, and
• just as impressive as if you had followed the path of the grind.

We can sum this all up in the following pithy motto:

Do Less. Live More. Get Ahead.

By purposely underscheduling my coursework, I will focus on other things that are fulfilling to me and often still productive in my career as a student: my Esperanto club; writing for the Journal of Young Investigators; writing bad poetry; doing yoga; having chats with some of the amazing, influential people just wandering nonchalantly on this campus; finding a topic for my senior thesis that truly interests me; reading; and in general exploring who I am and who I want to be. Now doesn't that sound fun?

As long as I strike the right balance, my GPA will benefit as well. I don't for one moment plan on slacking off--I am setting the goals higher this semester. I should be able to do better in my classes without just spending more time on them. I have much anecdotal evidence that a rested, happy mind is a smarter one, an example being: One night last semester, I accidentally got a full night's rest before my 8 AM Japanese class. My new-found comprehension, participation, and alertness startled me. I wonder which exams and other projects from last semester could have benefited from such a remedy. I want this state to be the norm, and I see no reason it won't be.

What are your goals this semester? Do you have any advice for other students?

The Discovery Projects are done and we are on break!

Hello, everyone! This one's from Cassie, class of 2012...
As the fall semester transitions into winter break, I am really glad to have found time to post to our IBH blog!

The presentations of the IB 270 Discovery Projects were given the week before finals, and they were all very impressive. First off, it was really comforting to know that people outside of our class came to see our presentations. A group of similarly interested people all gathering to see the culmination of our semester's work with the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans really made the presentations fun to give. Since this was also a pizza party/presentation hybrid, it was double the fun! From the infection rate of pseudomonas in C. elegans to the chemotaxis of C. elegans in the presence of different alcohols, our Discovery Projects explored a whole range of interesting topics regarding the effects of RNA interference in C. elegans.

For the Discovery Projects, our lab groups had to develop a novel hypothesis regarding the effects of RNA Interference on a gene within the C. elegans genome. At the beginning of the semester, we researched scientific literature in order to formulate our hypotheses, methods, and expected results.Once we had created a solid proposal for the experiment, we started to see how our regular class labs were related to this independent project. With our Mendelian genetics lab, we learned the body morphology of C. elegans, their reproductive systems, and how to classify certain mutant phenotypes. Armed with our knowledge about these soil-dwelling organisms, we then moved onto a DNA lab where we learned molecular techniques such as PCR and DNA sequencing with the Sequencher program. After the completion of the RNA Interference Lab, we had successfully learned how to make NGM (nematode growth medium) plates and then seed those plates with bacteria. We then learned the intricate details of RNA Interference, and how it would be working to knock out the genes chosen for our respective Discovery Projects. These labs were crucial building blocks that guided our projects throughout the semester. Many thanks to Nick and Miranda (our teaching assistants) for preparing those labs for us, and to Professor Whitfield for teaching us everything about C. elegans, RNA Interference, and the research process!

I've never been through a class where everything culminates so fluidly to an important group project presentation. I really felt like I had invested the entire semester in this project. Not only was class time utilized, but time outside of class was a necessity for getting these projects done on time. All of us had the same common goal--to execute this experiment as best as we could, and that meant putting in a ton of extra time. This was perfectly fine with me considering all of the fun times that were had in NHB this semester.

It's the most gratifying feeling to know that all of our fun and hard work intertwined to fabricate our scientific aspirations into a tangible design. Plus, those presentations weren't so scary once I realized that we really were all in this together. I am sure that the rest of my class is as excited for the rest of what the IBH program has to offer for the upcoming semesters. From one semester alone, my outlook regarding a career in biology has evolved from a genuine interest into a sincere passion that I will undoubtedly follow for the rest of my life. With IB 270, we delved further into biological applications, previously unknown details of molecular biology, and a wealth of laboratory techniques. All of the knowledge gained from lecture, lab, our professor, teaching assistants, and each other accumulated into a reserve of inspiration to further explore the biological world. Joining IBH was the best decision that I made at UIUC so far, and I truly look forward to my future academic adventures with the program.

After a long winter break, here we come, IB 271!
Cassie

The Semester's Almost Over! (Matt Grobis)

Hello!

With Thanksgiving over and preparations being made to return to U of I tomorrow, I'm realizing that there's a week and a half of classes left. Then finals and... it's over. Whoa, hold on a second. I remember several points during the semester when I'd look at an Allenotes in my dorm (Allen Hall) and see that it was week 8, or week 10. The semester was one enormously long stretch until about halfway through, and then the next few weeks flew by. Crazy...

This semester has changed me, I think. I feel a little burned out... I actually laughed a few days ago when I asked myself if I really want to go to graduate school. What would the other option be? Stay home and play video games? Try to make a rock band and play drums for a living? Sure, those are sources of immediate gratification, but what's down the line? Deprived of biology long enough, I'm sure I'd start itching to learn more about how the world works. This all reminds me of that concept from introductory psychology... it's like, people have "lists" of desired activities, and things that are normally low on the list can actually move up if one doesn't do them frequently. The opposite thing can happen for things that one does very frequently. People take for granted their health until it's jeopardized... then, it's the most important thing in the world to them.

Anyway, this is a tremendous deviation from the point of this post. I feel burnt out because I've tried so hard and met such resistance, especially from organic chemistry... I'll be glad when it's over. And I'll be glad when this semester is over, but not because I'll be done with my classes. I feel that I have learned so much this fall, maybe more so than the entire last year. Finishing this semester will put a cap on everything that I've done so far and let me finally get closure on the last few months. IB Honors has been intense but it's been a flood of information and experiences that I want and that have helped me understand the world.

It was nice to return home and be able to put the books aside and do whatever I wanted with no obligations for a few days. After a while, though, I started getting that familiar uncomfortable feeling like I should be doing something worthwhile. This, I feel, is the reason I want to go to graduate school. It's easy to get lost in the work, sleep deprivation, and occasional frustration. The whole point of why one is doing something can be hard to hold onto. I want to pave the way into unfamiliar territory, into concepts that are still unclear and the textbooks avoid. I want to do something that others will read about and say, "wow." When I was in high school, in my final reflective paper in English I wrote that I wanted to change the world. Coming to college, I see that changing the world is going to be a bit harder than I anticipated. But give me time.

-Matt

Late into October (Matt Grobis)

Hello all!

I've gone home for the weekend and have finally found the time to write something here. This semester's been hard, much harder than the other two here. Science and math classes can be really time-intensive, so even if the material itself isn't hard, if it takes a few hours to do it, those few hours are going to be bumping shoulders with the time it takes to finish other homework. Result: very late nights if you don't time manage.

For example, our first lab report was due in IB 270. The lab, analyzing the relationship between two phenotypes in C. elegans, seemed like it would have a straightforward and simple lab report. My group took copious notes in our lab notebooks and the lab report rubric didn't seem too bad. BUT: it took time. A lot of it. I realized this at 4am Friday morning, when I took a quick break from writing to finish (ok... start) my orgo problem set due in five hours. How'd this happen?!

At no point that week had I purposely put off doing homework. I was busy doing other work, but the work was always just what was due the next day. There's this thing called "planning ahead" that you need to learn when you come to college, and if you don't do that, sleep deprivation awaits if you want to get any sort of decent grades.

I'm not trying to scare anybody thinking about IB Honors. Read the rest of this post if you want to get excited about it, because I'm really happy here. It's just a lot of work. You need to be really driven to get through math through calc III and organic chemistry in addition to tough bio classes. Physics, biochem, and statistics are probably going to be tough too. But the thing is: everyone in IBH is going through this. That night I was up late writing the lab report, I joked around a lot with the other students there and we had Jimmy John's together, making light of the situation. We're all stressed. We're all trying our best. You really bond after something like that.

Academics aside, let's get to the dorky intellectual stuff... I'm so happy! I'm realizing that one of my favorite parts of IB 270 is reading scientific articles every week. This week's article was "Massive Horizontal Gene Transfer in Bdelloid Rotifers," by some people at Harvard and the Marine Bio Lab in Woods Hole, MA. Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is where a change in the genome occurs during an organism's lifetime, as opposed to vertical gene transfer, where two parents produce an offspring with a different genome. HGT is very common in bacteria but very rare in animals. In this one type of animal, the rotifer, though, the team found dozens of genes from bacteria, plants, and fungi. How could this have possibly happened? The article goes into detail about where they found the genes and how they could have gotten there; they use the same BLAST procedure that my lab group did to compare genes in different species (more on that later!) and analyzed where in the genome these foreign genes were.

I absolutely love reading stuff like this because it's so new that it's not even in the textbooks yet. I've realized that a lot of textbooks can be thorough but not very deep. They can cover a lot of material at a certain level of depth but they have to compromise that depth to cover everything they need to cover. A research article, on the other hand, is the equivalent of a paragraph of the textbook gone into incredible detail; basically, that paragraph is expanded into a few pages. Very cool.

So, back to the BLAST thing I mentioned. BLAST is a button you press on a website after specifying a nucleotide/protein/etc. sequence that you want to find similarities for. Normally this sequence you have corresponds to something in an organism, and you're trying to find related genes in other organisms. My lab group did this for our Discovery Project (I think I talk about the Discovery Project in detail two posts ago; check it out). We wanted to analyze olfaction and chemotaxis in C. elegans: ideally, knocking out a gene related to olfaction would result in a loss of chemotaxis. We found a gene in mice that, when knocked out, resulted in impaired olfaction. We BLASTed that gene and lo and behold, a near identical gene is present in C. elegans! We looked into a few articles on it, and nobody's done our exact experiment yet. Our semester project has been formed!

Anyway, on to other subjects. Orgo and calculus are hard but I'm managing. In my PSYC 433 class, we watched this amazing National Geographic special on Robert Sapolsky, a neurobiologist at Stanford who works with baboons in Kenya. In the video, a comparison was made between his findings of stress levels in the baboons and the results of a correlational study conducted in England on stress levels in workers in particular businesses. Baboons make a good comparison because they spend only 3 hours a day on food; the other 9 are entirely social behavior. Baboon groups have strong hierarchies, and the study found that as you descend from the top, your stress levels keep increasing. Interestingly, the same result was found with the people working in the hierarchial businesses in England. The special then went into detail on the health effects of stress, how to manage it, why zebras don't get ulcers (that's the name, actually, of one of Sapolsky's books), and more, all intertwined with beautiful views of the savannah. Awesome.

I hope this thing hasn't dragged on too long. I'm going to eat some cereal and get started on orgo reading, which never ends... but at least it's good to be home :-)

-Matt

A Month into the Semester (Matt Grobis)

Hello!

I'm writing this slightly sleep-deprived and sick but intellectually content. This semester has been pretty hard so far... IB Honors is a part of it but it's more so due to my schedule. Dr. Cheeseman was right when advising against the IB 270, CHEM 236, CHEM 237, and MATH 231 idea. I'm not taking CHEM 237 (I'm in a psychology class instead) and I'm already feeling the crunch of bio, chem, and calc. These 12 credit hours alone outcompete schedules with more credit hours last year. I think that the difference between intro-level and upper-level classes is that in intro-level classes, investing some time and studying will most likely push you to an A. In upper-level classes, you need to really grapple with the material before you can confidently say you've mastered it.

This isn't to say that this year is very hard; if I've learned anything in college, it's that it could always be much worse, haha. I've just had to put down a lot of time to get to the level of understanding of the material I want. Orgo's going well and is interesting because we're learning the answers to a lot of "why" questions: "why does a reaction occur the way it does?" for example. I have a hard TA for calculus but at least I'm understanding what's going on (I can't say that for the first few lectures this semester, though, haha). Psychology is very interesting, too, so I'm content there.

That leaves IB 270. The lecture material is still largely review but Professor Whitfield keeps it interesting by asking us questions that make us look at the material a different way instead of just memorizing it and moving on. I really like how we read a research article every week and discuss it on Friday. We're learning about the biomolecules and DNA replication and this week our article was a theory on the transition from a lifeless world to one where molecules were self-replicating (whether this constitutes life, however, was part of our discussion).

In lab my group has been planning how we'll do our crosses to test whether two genes in C. elegans are sex-linked, linked, or on different chromosomes (or more than 50 centiMorgans apart). For the discovery research project, my group is thinking about investigating chemotaxis... but it turns out that C. elegans has literally hundreds of genes for this. Looks we'll have to either choose a different topic or filter through the C. elegans genetic literature until we find a chemotaxis-related gene that doesn't need to be knocked out with 20 other genes to see a phenotypic effect.

I've got a lot of work but I'm very satisfied. I'm not wasting time with any of my classes and I'm happy with how much I've learned so far. I've gotten to know others in IB Honors better and it's cool seeing them outside of class, going through the same work I am but still joking around and being positive about everything. Being around people like that makes me realize I don't have much to complain about.

-Matt