Stop memorizing, it's time to talk - even for cell biologists at NTNU

I'm in the process of finishing my 4th year as a student at NTNU. Most of the master students have by their forth year finished all the courses they are ever going to take (unless they proceed to a phd) and now focus all their energy on their thesis. Because of the nature of my project, I decided to also do experiments in my forth year, and therefore I still have 3 more courses to go.

By now I'm terribly tired and sick of the part of student life that consists of lectures, reading and memorizing facts. Most courses at NTNU consists of two lectures a week, a lab or theoretical exercise a week and/or a major paper during the semester. The curriculum usually consists of a big, heavy book that is carefully memorized for the exam - and often forgot quickly afterwards.

The bachelor program in cell- and molecular biology that I followed have a selection of increasingly detailed cell biology courses. Each year you memorize a little bit more of good, old Fat Alberts (I love that book!) and additionally some microbiology, biochemistry or other subjects you prefer (good thing with this program is they let you choose a lot).
Unfortunately, hardly any course is centered around exploring the field it belongs to. Articles are rarely included in the curriculum and during the bachelor degree the students are not commonly engaging in discussions with their professor. This of course only account for the cell- and molecular program and a few exceptions exists. The plant biology courses make great use of articles and invite the students to interesting discussions - but that is all thanks to the prof that teaches them (check out his webpage here).

During my bachelor degree I had 3 courses that thought me how to make use of scientific articles (yes, that actually needs to be thought and practiced!) and showed me that even students are allowed to criticize research presented in peer-reviewed journals. All of these courses took place in Copenhagen during my stay at Copenhagen University. I thought it was great fun to ditch the books and bury myself in a pile of articles. But I was utterly shocked to hear the Danish students attack the articles, pick them apart and have no respect whatsoever (not even for Nature or Science, oh the horror!) During my stay in Copenhagen I learned what to look for in an article. What questions to ask. What was new and exciting in the specific field and what are the major obstacles lying ahead.

I was so excited to get back to Norway and start my thesis. Two of my Copenhagen courses were at masters degree level and I imagined I'd go home to the same kind of funny and eye-opening stuff.
Oh no! Except for a bachelor level plant biology course, that never happened.
Even at master degree level, the cell biologist at NTNU is expected to attend lectures and memorize Fat Alberts. Yet again!
And at the same time, those lucky ecologists attend scientific seminars once a week, have articles and discussions as curriculum and then sit down to lunch and tell me how amazing and FUN sexual selection is. Yes. I'm very, very, veryveryveryveryvery jealous.

During a bachelor degree a certain amount of basic knowledge should be acquired by the student. I however also feel that a bachelor student should learn to read and evaluate articles - Danish style!
Upon entering a masters degree program one should be finished with memorizing facts. It is time to get to know your field, read about it (in articles, sorry Fat Alberts), talk about it and getting a feeling of what it's like to be a scientist - what lies behind all those curves and gel pictures?

At this point, I don't think I can recommend the cell- and molecular studies at NTNU to anyone. I'm very sorry to say so, as the people working here are great. They are accomplished, skilled and always helpful and cheerful. The professors, phds and other staff are just awesome - anyone that can write a thesis here should do so. They should just...not follow the courses here!

Flipboard

My iPhone recently came back from repair and I took the opportunity to check out some new apps. Somehow I stumbled upon Flipboard and I've been using it a lot since the download. In case you haven't tried it yet - you should!

Flipboard is a "social magazine" that allows you to choose and sort all kinds of news feeds. This is a screen shot from my own flipboard.
I've selected my twitter feed and a broad selection of "sciency" and geeky stuff, along with the occasional newspaper. This is great way to make your interests more accessible. It's easy to use and looks cool, and that's about what I'm going to say - just try it.

I spent a lot of time flipping around my flipboard today as I was stuck in a hopelessly time-wasting lecture -if you can call it a lecture when the prof reads aloud slides that are copy-paste from the book. I couldn't get myself to run off in the breaks (what if he suddenly said something important?) so I ended up with Flipboard. Pure luck!

In the end I used the lecture to read a blog post at Respectful Insolence (part of Scienceblogs) called Preclinical research has a problem, but that doesn't mean religion is better. I don't have time to say much about it in this post, but if you haven't read it, I recommend that you do. It made all the time I wasted on that lecture well worth it - and I never would have found it without Flipboard.

The magical concept of free food

As a student you don't have a lot of money and the least thing you like to spend your money on is food. This also include coffee and all kinds of cold beverages.

Therefore universities and all companies that ever has anything to do with any type of students, knows that by offering free food the number of students attending their event more than triples. Trondheim is a small city that is strongly and wholeheartedly dedicated to engineers. Regardless of what field they are "engineering" the whole city with all it's companies, love to arrange various (career related) events for them.

While the numerous engineers attend these events to talk to all the business people, we who are not engineers attend to collect freebies - and food. It's amazing how much snacks, cake, drinks and pizza you can collect over the year without being an engineer of any kind. And even better, it makes you feel awesome.
The sense of greatness, accomplishment and general "I rule the world"-feeling after getting hold of something free and consumable is a defining property of biology students at NTNU.

By the way, I got some apple pie and a pepsi today. That's right. I'm the best. Ever!!

All the things I want to study

I'm a cell biologist. I work with secondary metabolites from Arabidopsis that has potential in chemotherapy. But I must confess, I love marine biology. And microbiology. Especially marine microbiology. Not to mention taxonomy, evolution, immunology and archea.

Acetabularia  mediterranea (wikipedia).   

Every now and then I realize that I need to quit my masters degree and study something completely different. Like the algae Acetabularia. This algae is about 0.5 to 10 cm tall and consists of a rhizoid, a stem and an umbrella-like cap on the top. Here's the awesome part: the whole thing is made up of a single cell.
1 cell!!!
The whole thing is only one cell, with one nuclei. I'm sorry to ditch you Volvox, but this is just so much cooler!
Anyone want to fund my research on Acetabularia?


 - don't tell my supervisor...

Time sparing or time consuming gadgets?

If you don't consider how rarely I've been blogging lately, it's clear that I love gadgets. I have an android phone, iPhone, Kindle and a Nook that I use more like a tablet. I think Android's way better than Apple (sorry if I offend you) because of the possibility to use widgets, but I also find that Apples solutions often function better.

I sent my iPhone to get its power button repaired and is facing a few days without a phone. No problem. I have my tablet and computer. At all times I can find whatever information I want and I'm still constantly available - I have skype, email, Facebook and Twitter. This need to always be available makes me want to check both emails, Facebook or Twitter all the time. Just in case someone has something important to say. Or in case someone want's to meet for coffee. Or in case... it goes on.

Needless to say, this is a waste of time. Imagine being able to sit down at your desk and NOT feel the urge to respond immediately to every email, but instead fall deeply into whatever article your'e reading (or writing).

Gadgets for work...
In addition to using technology for ..."social purposes", I'm also very interested in using it for more practical work, like planning my studies, keeping track of my experiments and lab work and have easy access to all my protocols -and preferably also results- at all times. In addition, I need to share most of this stuff with my supervisor.
It's not easy to find the right tools for these problems.

I usually use my Google calendar for planning, but I haven't found a very good mobile app for it. The one on iPhone is useless with no easy or functional way of importing several calendars. In the end, a lot of plans are just made i Excel and shared with my supervisor on Dropbox (Dropbox never fails!).
I've looked at a few lab work planning options, but they all require some "getting into it", which there never seems to be time to do. In the moment a piece of paper is just so much quicker.

The one thing that always works is Evernote. I use it for planning my week, because of the easy synchronizing all my plans are everywhere at all times. I also use it for my study notes, results and "to do lists" for the same reason.

...and for all the time spent on the couch
I LIKE my Kindle. I can't imagine anyone that don't like Kindle. I read Game of Thrones (that I LOVE) on my Kindle. I read Superbug, A planet of viruses, Pride and predjudice and so on. And I like it!
What I don't like about my Kindle, is the absolutely, non-functional and stupid pdf-reader. I cannot read my articles on my Kindle. Baaad Kindle!
Then again, this is the non-work section, so never mind. Get back to Game of Thrones. Winter is coming.