When I was just finishing my undergraduate career and applying to graduate schools, a professor told me, “Kevin, when you are in graduate school, you need to branch out your knowledge. You need to learn something new. Never in your life are you going to be paid to figure out what you want to study.” I really held onto these words.
So what attracted me to blood clotting was that I knew nothing about it. I have never studied anything like it. It was completely different to me and I like to be constantly challenged. I am always looking to meet new people and get fresh ideas, so I decided to try something new and I liked it. I have a different thinking process than people who study blood clotting because I studied bacteria for years. So it helps me bring something to the lab. Also I have had entirely different training, which helps me be different.
If you would have asked me a year ago what I would study in graduate school, I would not have even suggested blood clotting.
I think blood itself is very interesting. I don’t study blood directly, but we extract DNA from blood all the time. A very curious question is how the different cells in blood may affect our analyses.
That’s pretty cool I never saw blood clotting as something so cool but the way you described it made me look at it in a different way and hearing you say you like it because it’s different I kinda want to check it out! 🙂
Sex chromosomes are interesting for so many reasons! One is that they vary much more across people than we are led to believe by popular culture. 1/2500 people has only a single X chromosome, while as many as 1/500 have two X chromosomes and a Y chromosome. There are also variations where people have two X chromosomes but develop testes, and where people have an X and a Y chromosome, but develop breasts and vulva (so at least in human populations, it is a huge oversimplification to say that girls are XX and boys are XY).
Comments
Chris commented on :
That’s pretty cool I never saw blood clotting as something so cool but the way you described it made me look at it in a different way and hearing you say you like it because it’s different I kinda want to check it out! 🙂
beststudentevs commented on :
it might be cool but sometimes blood can be very nasty
Kevin commented on :
It can be very gross, you have to be careful around other people’s blood!
Kevin commented on :
I am glad to hear that you found it interesting!
beststudentevs commented on :
why do you find sex chromosomes interesting
explain
Kevin commented on :
Hi, beststudentevs, I would recommend asking Melissa this question.
Melissa commented on :
Sex chromosomes are interesting for so many reasons! One is that they vary much more across people than we are led to believe by popular culture. 1/2500 people has only a single X chromosome, while as many as 1/500 have two X chromosomes and a Y chromosome. There are also variations where people have two X chromosomes but develop testes, and where people have an X and a Y chromosome, but develop breasts and vulva (so at least in human populations, it is a huge oversimplification to say that girls are XX and boys are XY).