“For Field Work Term, I volunteered at a Physiology Research Lab at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine. I had a great time there, and it was an incredible learning experience in many ways. I was able to work on projects that were both new and exciting to me, and to work with machines and tools that I had never seen previously. I initially wanted to go to that lab because I wanted some biochemical research experience that could give me more insight into how real scientific research works, and I chose this lab in particular because their research is both innovative and relevant to my interests.

“The best lesson I learned while at the lab is how difficult and stressful research can be: for the most part, it's actually an anomaly if your experiments goes smoothly! This experience greatly helped to cement what we were studying at Bennington all year, and, while I initially felt intimidated by the lab environment, it began to feel much more like home.”