Developing a lab course

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justapremed

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So my summer took an interesting turn. I was going to look into TA-ing a gen chem lab, but in short, I got offered another job in the chem dept, which is pretty much contributing to developing the new biochem lab course syllabus (an upper level, major req course that I had to take next year anyway).

Compensation is generous (imo) but more importantly, it sounds much more fun than taking points off for having the wrong number of sig figs or making sure people don't mess up in lab. I'd instead be trying out (multiple times if needed) the lab experiments that these biochem professors want to put in the syllabus for next year, see how long it takes, and how to improve the lab/yield by changing some materials, concentrations of reagents, etc.

It sounds like so much fun, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to take this instead of a TA position. But do you think this "activity" will show any likable traits in adcoms' point of views? Since I am applying this cycle, I would like to consider that a bit also...

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I think that is awesome and will definitely contribute to your knowledge. I agree that it sounds much more interesting! :D Especially if you can show in your PS/interview that you learned a lot and enjoyed the different perspective this experience gave you. I'd say go for it.

If I learned anything from applying last year, the adcom looks much more highly on activities you did because they meant something to your or excited you, rather than those you did because you thought you "should" to get into med school. Just my opinion, though!
 
do you think this "activity" will show any likable traits in adcoms' point of views? Since I am applying this cycle, I would like to consider that a bit also...

Leadership? depending on how you spin it. Like, if you have input into the professor's decision process.
 
Leadership? depending on how you spin it. Like, if you have input into the professor's decision process.

I doubt you could call it leadership since they'd pretty much be messing around in lab by his/herself. You might be able to call it some form of research? depending on the amount of experimenting you're doing to optimize the various labs. I've done similar stuff, I just lumped it all with my TA'ing.
 
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