Hello! My name is Ido, and I’ve been a member of the Mizrahi lab for the past two years. During my undergraduate degree, my involvement in the group began as a lab technician, a year later I become a bachelors project student. Two years have passed and, these days, I am beginning my master degree here in Mizrahi’s lab.
At the end of my undergraduate studies, I went through a motivational crisis. Studying for exams semester after semester just for the sake of good grades felt meaningless to me and I felt worn out. Right then, all of us together as research group went to a retreat in the northern part of Israel. During our retreat we hiked, ate good food (also attended an Indian food cooking class), drank some beer and wine, and even practiced some yoga!
In addition to all the pleasure, there was a lot of room for business, and we talked a lot about science. Team members practiced presenting their projects, in the format of an elevator pitch. For me, it was an enriching experience to hear briefly about what each member of the group is researching. The people in the lab are very smart and really know their projects in detail. Listening to these amazing people talk about their projects with passion, made me want a project of my own in which I could be connected to the same way. From the group members’ conversations about their projects, I was able to obtain a better understanding of how each of them is a part of research answering a bigger question “Are we capable of engineering the cows’ microbiome?”
After the personal presentations, we were divided into teams and brainstormed new ideas for various projects that the group might want to promote. Each team was made up of group members at different stages in their scientific career which allowed the younger members (such as I) to learn from the more experienced ones how we can fine tune an idea to an actual project. Each team selected two ideas for projects and presented them to the rest of the group. We then discussed these ideas, asked questions about them, and finally rated them. I got to hear very creative and interesting ideas for projects and in addition to be exposed to the way of thinking of the various group members. To be exposed to the thinking ways of other group members was very enriching. For me, the main takeout from this activity was an understanding that good since is done in groups, where we come up with new ideas and with the senior group members guidance leveraging them into actual research. After this activity, the group dynamics in our laboratory seemed much more important than ever before.
For me, the timing of the retreat could not have been better. At the end of my undergraduate degree when I am already exhausted, I discovered a new aspect of science, the social one. Getting to know the team members in less formal ways made me realize that I am in an excellent incubator for developing my own career. I realized that I could get very far with my science if I devoted myself to research in the same way as group members are.
In conclusion, I had a lot of fun and enriching experiences and I hope for more meetings of this kind. In my opinion, the combination of social and professional meetings is one of the foundations for maintaining high morale and for promoting our research in the group. For me the retreat was a turning point from a tired undergraduate student to a motivated master student. I am now, full of motivation and excited to start my career here as a member in the research group at the laboratory of Professor Itzik Mizrahi.