My second SC-ACE bootcamp felt completely different from my first. Last summer, I was one of the new students trying to absorb every rule, technique, and unfamiliar word. This time, I came back as a returning student and was assigned to help mentor the newer students. Bootcamp was honestly pretty chill.
Most of the basic lab skills were already familiar. I didn’t need another full introduction to micropipettes or a reminder that a tiny mistake in volume can affect an entire experiment. Instead of spending most of the practical activities worrying about whether I was holding a pipette correctly or following a protocol in the right order, I helped prepare some of the activities and watched for places where the new students got stuck. I still took part in the training, but I spent less time repeating the introductory practice for myself. The point was to help the newer students get through it.
That made the same training feel very different. Last year, I had to concentrate so hard on my own work that I could barely notice what anyone else was doing. This year, I could pay attention to the steps where the new students hesitated or needed help. I wasn’t suddenly running the bootcamp, and I don’t want to make it sound more dramatic than it was. I was simply more useful because I had already made it through the beginner stage once. It also made me notice how much of the basic routine I had stopped thinking about.
There were still several lectures mixed in with the practical activities. I understood much more biology than I did the previous summer, but that did not make every lecture easy. One immunology professor gave a lecture that was genuinely difficult to follow. I could recognize more of the terms this time, yet putting all of the ideas together was another problem. So even during the relaxed version of bootcamp, there were still moments when I was trying to keep up.
The program also reviewed fundamental laboratory procedures from last year. Those skills matter because everyone needs the same basic habits before entering a working lab, but repeating them was no longer the most interesting part for me. I already knew what careful pipetting looked like and why clean technique mattered. I also knew the general rhythm of reading a protocol, preparing the materials, and working through the steps without rushing. The more noticeable change was being able to pay attention to how the activities were organized and where people needed help the first time.
Mostly, I was waiting to return to the Alachkar Lab and find out what I would be doing there. Last summer, much of my project involved building and validating a plasmid containing FLT3-ITD, a mutation associated with acute myeloid leukemia. This year, I would continue working with FLT3, but the project would involve a different mutation and substantially more work with cells. That was enough of a preview for bootcamp. Week 1 would be where I actually learned what we were trying to build and why.
It was nice to be back, especially without feeling lost during every activity. Still, after helping with another round of basic training, I was much more interested in getting into the actual lab and starting Year 2.
