Who's Who at Duke?
Being that I'm a student using the word seminar probably wasn't the best way for the Howard Hughes program to get me excited about our biweekly guest speakers! Surprisingly enough, I actually came to enjoy our seminars. It was a great way for me to learn about the research being conducted at my own institution and about what is going on in the science community in general. In a sense, it gave me insight into who's who at Duke and what they do to contribute to the functioning of this institution.
I think what I liked most about the seminars was that it gave me a chance to see how people from several different fields could come together to create amazing projects, and how research that was started years ago can suddenly become one of the major research topics of today, such as Dr. Koelle's research on infectious diseases like influenza.
So, even though I didn't always completely understand the topics of the seminars I feel as if they had a great affect on me. They made me more aware of all of the options available in research, and even helped in sparking my current consideration of getting an MD/PhD (I'm just not sure if 7 years of schooling after college is for me). Overall, taking two hours out of my week to listen to someone talk, really wasn't that bad. In fact it was enlightening; I have a sense of who's who at Duke!!
