GRIP, Research Abroad Changing My Career Outlook

University of Tokyo - Japan

Before coming to Japan for my research internship, I did not have that much interest in wet lab research. The idea of pipetting solutions with complicated names and helping a postdoc do the work that they did not want to do seemed very unappealing to me since this was the type of research experiences I had been through prior. Instead, I mostly wanted to come to Japan in order to get to experience the country and all it had to offer, while also doing something that I deemed useful for my future career. 

However, upon arriving, I was told that I would be given my own research project. Although it was not a research project that I had proposed myself, I was given full autonomy in conducting the experiments and trying out new methods for the research protocols. The major reason why this was possible was that the lab that I joined was very new and small. As a result, the limited resources and people in the lab meant that I had much more freedom and that I would be able to get to know my PI (principal investigator) much better. Despite my initially negative outlooks on my summer of research, I found myself extremely invested in my project and enjoying the process of discovering something through experimentation. 

It was a bit difficult to understand some of the topics and concepts that were presented to me at first. However, with the help of my friends in the lab who were much more knowledgeable than I was, I managed to learn a lot about molecular biology and optogenetics. I now plan on switching to a new research laboratory when I return to school so that I can further pursue the topics that I had learned about this summer. 

Not only was the research extremely fascinating to me in my UTokyo lab, but I also met many people who were able to mentor me and give me a better idea of what I want to do in the future. Before coming to Japan, I was very set on becoming a surgeon and just getting an MD. However, one of the other interns that I worked with is going to medical school in a year for an MD/PhD program. Listening to him talk about his experiences and learning from him started to pique my interest in MD/PhD programs. Previously, I had completely rejected the idea of spending my life as a researcher, but now I feel like I can see so many more future paths for myself. 

I came into this internship very sure of what I wanted for my future. Now, as I am about to leave Tokyo, I feel like many new doors have presented themselves for me, and I am excited to go back to Penn to explore different paths that I had never considered in the past.