I have always wondered how graduate students conducted themselves in going about solving problems and analyzing data. I was privileged to work with two diverse graduate students whom have taught me more than I learned in my freshmen year of college, which I will explain later on. By observing and studying them, I realize they were eager to learn new things as I was and were willing to put pride away and ask questions on things that challenged them. An example of such experience was when I had my first orientation, conducted by Dr. Halada, on the processes of creating nanoparticles. It was a new field to me but a familiar territory, since nanotechnology has become an asset in shaping the world. A program I’m familiar with, Gaussian (used mostly in computational chemistry), was new to them, but to my surprise they asked me to teach them instead of using it to compute data.  I realize then that they were not just trying to get through graduate school but rather acquire all the knowledge they can get.

          My first week was mostly an introductory to electrochemistry which is what my research is based on. I brought my undergraduate mentality of doing things without really understanding it, but I realize quickly that they were not going to put up with it. I was taken back to the basics of chemistry (redox reaction, chemical reactions, synthesis of compounds) and had to work my way up to electroplating. An example was when I was asked to explain why gasoline burns, but water does not burn. I was unable to do so, so I was further asked to define burning, and all could say was I know when I am being burned. They patiently explained to me what burning was; which is basically an oxidation of a substance, and the reason why water cannot burn is because it has already been oxidized and cannot be further oxidized just like ashes which has been oxidized/burned and cannot be further oxidized/burned.

This program is a success for me just from my experience and observation from week one.

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