Though it was many years ago, I was once an undergraduate. What’s more? I was an undergraduate research assistant. Yes, it is true. Back in 2010, old Bill was burning through the money from his summer internship at Pioneer-Hibred (I know it is Corteva now, but let's call it how it is. Pioneer was a better name). Time to hit the student job boards!

 

I see a job listing for an undergraduate researcher in a USDA-ARS soybean genetics lab. I sat down for my interview with Lori Lincoln (@LoriLincoln), and we hit it off. We had a mutual enjoyment of northeast Iowa and the Iowa State Cyclones. 

 

That job is where my soybean love begins! At first, I was there for the supplementary income. I was not particularly interested in genetics. I was one of those “pre-med students” who will never go to med school. The USDA got me started on some cool research projects. I got to help with BAC-end sequencing working from shotgun cloning, DNA extractions and preparing Sanger sequencing. I think that the DNA extraction protocol is seared into my brain — step one: Centrifuge E. coli for 10 mins. Step Two: Pour off liquid. Step Three: Re-suspend in buffer 150ul of buffer PI... 

 

The truth was, I had an excellent work environment. Lori Lincoln was patient and helpful (despite my best efforts to screw up every experiment) in teaching me not only the techniques but also the reasons why she did things in a certain way. And that was how the lessons stuck. Three years of working in Soybean Genetics lab changed me from a pre-med student to a plant scientist. And that is how I ended up in the TPS program. 

 

Now things have come full circle. I have undergraduate research assistants help me! I can only hope I am teaching them almost as well as I was. Since last January, the McHale lab (@mchalelab) undergraduates have been instrumental in the completion of my projects. They have helped me with phenotyping Phytophthora Rot resistance in over 1600 soybean lines, they have completed DNA extractions, genotyping, making media, and of course, they have spent their fair share of time labeling. 

 

The truth is I would have been unable to complete my projects without good undergraduate help. I guess my reason for writing this is to acknowledge how excellent undergraduate research assistants can be.  With a little investment in training, they can do significant parts of research projects saving you heaps of time that can be spent elsewhere, like Twitter, like data analysis and writing your dissertation.