A Day in the Life Of...
Daniel Hamm, Biochemistry Major (medical school hopeful)
When I am not going to school, I am involved in Alpha Epsilon Delta (AED), a pre-professional honors society, community service, research projects for two professors and working in another professor’s laboratory. I also shadow a physician in trauma surgery at UMC in Las Vegas. I recently left my career at the Luxor Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas after four years to return to school and pursue science classes full-time in order to expedite the process of matriculating to medical school. With all of this activity I have also maintained my marriage of 7 and one half years, and I still have time for a new cat.
This is a typical day for me at UNLV, in fact, this was last Tuesday, December 7, 2007.
7 a.m.
Wake up, eat breakfast, and feed the cat that I recently saved from certain
death. I also cry about our bills and lack of money.
8 a.m.
Head to assistant professor MaryKay Orgill’s office in the Department of
Chemistry to work on private sector research (which I can’t get into because it involves a patent-pending process).
Noon
Finish my research work and read an email from assistant professor Michelle Elekonich, School of Life Sciences, agreeing to meet with me during her office hours to discuss pathways for a research paper I am writing with a local physician, under the supervision of assistant professor Susan Meacham, School of Life Sciences. The paper is based on a study conducted by Dr. Humberto Restrepo at the Sunrise Children’s Heart Center associating insulin resistance with hypothyroidism in obese children. Talking with assistant professor Elekonich is important because I have not taken a mammalian physiology class yet - I largely have an economics background - and I have no idea what is going on with these medical problems on the cellular level.
12:30 p.m.
Eat lunch on the fly (that’s a joke that will become clear later)…lunch is a
sandwich that I pack from home and eat on the way to my genetics class at 1:00 p.m. I arrive in class and check for mustard on my shirt—no mustard, my lucky day. I like to get to class early because I also work in assistant professor Deborah Hoshizaki’s lab. She offers me financial assistance via a work study position to assist in her lab. Work study and/or a part-time job is the only way I can afford to pay for school and expenses. I know this to be true because I also had a full-time job starting at the age of sixteen to provide support for my economics degree. This is the first semester of school in which I have not worked a full time job since my junior year in high school. So I am happy to only work part-time now. Note to self: next time, have rich parents.
1 p.m.
The joy of “genetics” class begins and then ends with a lot of words that
either sound like “genes,” or actually were genes. I learn this largely from the assigned reading but we did clearly discuss DNA replication, because I can see something written in my notes that look like “DNA resilation.” I assume that what looks like “resilation” is actually “replication” because DNA does not resilate to the best of my knowledge.
2:30 p.m.
I visit the new gym and workout for an hour and a half. Today is chest and the standard 45 minutes of cardio. If I don’t workout, I feel bad and my DNA probably won’t “resilate” properly.
4 p.m.
I head home and eat dinner…my diet is comprised largely of tuna fish, rice, and traces of benzene and other carcinogens that I managed to bring home on my hands from the chemistry building (just kidding).
5 p.m.
I am back on campus and in the Gibbs’ lab to make food for a graduate student’s fruit flies. The scientific name for these flies is Drosophila melanogaster. I make two batches of food: one batch is made with cane sugar, and the other is made with beet sugar. We will be doing isotope analysis on the flies later and the two sugars have distinct carbon 12/13 ratios which can be detected by using a machine that I don’t fully understand yet…but I am determined to figure this out.
7:30 p.m.
I run into one of my teachers (who is actually a graduate student and who helps with the cell physiology class I am taking). I discuss some minor details about the upcoming test and she is more than helpful. She works in the lab next door so I can sometimes siphon free lessons while I cook fly food. I think I spend more time cooking fly food than my own food.
8 p.m.
I am home now and have a chance to talk to my wife for a while, eat a little bit and study until midnight. Cell physiology takes up most of time, followed by biochemistry and genetics.
Midnight
I lay in bed and stress over not getting straight A’s this semester. I also wonder if I screwed up the fly food. Goodnight.
The College of Sciences offers research opportunities, including laboratory experience working side-by-side with professors.