October 2004

Hailyn Nielsen • A Stressful Summer

During the school year, Iowa City is a vibrant, dynamic location. From rowdy football games to loud concerts to stimulating lectures, this college town has everything anyone could ever want to experience. Walking from classes to bars to restaurants, one passes every type of person imaginable. Professionals dressed in suits and ties, hippies with dreadlocks and tie-dye shirts, and the punk crowd with pink mohawks and tight black shirts. Iowa City during the summer, however, is a completely different beast.

I know. I have lived in Iowa City for three of the past four summers of my life. For one thing, the population must be reduced by at least a factor of three, although it seems like more. The Thursday, Friday, and Saturday mass migrations to local bars by 20-year-olds dressed to the nines have dwindled to slow trickles of 25- to 30-year-olds in what they wore to work that day. My favorite 3 a.m. snack joints now close at 11 p.m. Libraries are empty. The Cambuses are supposed to arrive every 15 minutes (although they seem to stop only every half hour) as opposed to every ten minutes. My e-mail account and the electricity and water in the university buildings seem to shut down at least once a week. And it’s still impossible to find a place to park within a one-mile radius of campus.

I think most people endure the changed city during the summer by skipping out of work, spending days on the beach at the Coralville Reservoir or biking at Sugarbottom, and partying the nights away at one of downtown’s many bars. No one seems to mind the small town atmosphere of Iowa City during the summer as long as they don’t have to worry about studying for classes. My problem is that I’m taking nine semester hours of classes, working, and studying for my MCAT. In other words, my summer is miserable.

I go to my “Discrete Structures” class at 9 a.m. each morning. I don’t do math or logic much before 10:30, so the summer session has been a little rough for me. To complete the computer science major in four years, however, I need to complete this course as soon as possible. Because the summer session lasts only eight weeks, the subject matter is accelerated up to twice as fast as the regular semester, a grueling pace for me. Also, there are only another ten or so students taking the course with me. No one ever seems to have the time or desire to get a study group started. We have an average of two quizzes each week and an exam every two or three weeks! I don’t think I’d mind as much if I weren’t also expected to work 40 hours a week.

In January, I began honors research in Dr. Michael Apicella’s microbiology lab. So, each morning after class, I catch the Pentacrest bus to the Bowen Science Building and start my lab work for the day. I absolutely love and lose myself in the work, but the fact is I don’t know everything I’m doing yet. Dave, one of the researchers in the lab, has become a sort of mentor for me. I find myself following him around all day taking frenzied and copious notes so I can later replicate on my own the techniques he demonstrates for me. Inevitably, I return to Dave with dozens of questions I didn’t anticipate about the same procedure he showed me not half an hour ago. I’m forever grateful for Dave’s help. He never complains, or even acts annoyed, when I make him halt his own research to oversee mine. Many of the techniques I’ve learned take several hours to complete. While I’m running gels or transformations or PCRs, I try to complete my “Discrete Structures” homework or study for the Medical College Admissions Test, which I will take in August. In order to discipline and distribute the review for this dreaded exam, I enrolled in a review class that occupies at least another six hours of my precious time each week.

Every Monday and Wednesday (and occasional Tuesdays and Thursdays) I duck out of work around five, grab a quick bite to eat at Big Mike’s subs or Z’Marik’s noodle bar and prepare to study organic chemistry, biology, and physics for the next three hours. The MCAT determines whether medical schools will deem me a valuable addition to their community. Without a good MCAT score, I can throw any hopes of becoming a doctor right out the window. Needless to say, I’m a little nervous. The MCAT covers a year’s worth of physics material I haven’t touched for over two years, two years of chemistry, and a whole lot of biology. It’s an eight-hour test I must endure on Saturday, August 14, 2004. Every time I think about it, my heart skips a beat and jumps into my throat.

I usually arrive home exhausted about 9 p.m., 12 hours after I left. Most nights I don’t even have the energy to walk my dog, let alone complete any unfinished homework or try to make sense of the results I got at work that day. My summer has been more time-consuming and tiring than any of my previous semesters at the University of Iowa, but it’s also been more rewarding. My computer science classes always leave me feeling as if I’ve accomplished something. The logic and manner of thinking of the field in general is not something that comes naturally to me. Any time I can successfully train myself to use this math-based system of problem solving and earn a good grade, I can’t help but be proud.

The MCAT review class should prepare me to receive a good score on the exam later this summer. This would vastly increase the options for the career I choose to pursue upon completion of my undergraduate degrees. Most importantly, the work I’ve done in the microbiology lab proves to me that I enjoy research science as a career. I’m learning information no one else knows. The pursuit of this knowledge is absolutely stimulating and rewarding. Even though my pale skin aches to see a beach and I’m a stranger in all the downtown bars, I think my summer will pay off in the end.

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