Category: SV

A Summer of Learning

SV

I almost didn’t apply to EPFL’s Excellence Research Internship Program (ERIP). In my mind, working abroad in a laboratory in Switzerland for a summer was a distant dream. But with encouragement from my family, I applied despite my doubts. Looking back, I’m glad I stepped outside of my comfort zone as this past summer at (…)

And it was just the beginning…

SV

Throughout the summer, I conducted cancer research at the Hanahan Laboratory of Translational Oncology in the Agora Translational Cancer Research Center in Lausanne. Upon my arrival, I spent several days immersing myself in the literature to get up to speed on my project, which was a subpart of an ongoing project in the lab. Soon, (…)

A matter of scale

SV

This summer turned out to be quite a story, and good stories usually have a running theme. This time, such a theme was scale. Throughout my internship, I contributed to the PhD project of one of the lab members – and unlike all my prior projects, doctoral research takes years to complete. Having done a (…)

Bikes & hikes

SV

It’s 2:00 AM on a hot summer Monday, and I’m still editing bits and pieces of a 70+ slides Powerpoint presentation. I need to present my results from the past 6 weeks of work to a team of 15 biologists including the lab’s head, each of them keen on scrutinizing the data I’ll be presenting. (…)

Adventures in Switzerland

SV

My experience in Switzerland has managed not just to meet, but to exceed, everything I had hoped for in a summer internship in Europe. Let me preface my explanation by saying that I had already spent a year studying abroad in the UK before starting my internship at EPFL. When you come from the U.S., which is relatively homogenous, (…)

Debating the existence of Switzerland

SV

At the time of application for this internship, I knew of two things: one, it in Lausanne, Switzerland, and two, they spoke French there. Despite the weeks of research I did on EPFL I somehow forgot to google Lausanne. The acceptance letter arrived at the end of January. To my relief, I was no longer (…)