Presentation day at ASU

On Monday March 4th,  I was at ASU Main Campus in Tempe for my poster presentation. Registration is supposed to begin at 7:15 am. I left my house at 6:30 and get there by 7:06 and I have to look for parking. Fortunately for me I found a place where they will let me park for five dollars the whole which i thought was great compared to eight dollars in some places around the campus. After that, I looked for the place called Memorial Union on the campus where the conference will be taking place. After a long walk, I finally found the place. When I got there, there were a lot of people already waiting in line to register. I did the same thing, find the appropriate line and then line up. At the registration, a badge was given to me along with bag containing the schedule of day, information about where i will put my poster for presentation and also some paperwork and fill out and sign by the end of day. After the registration, I went to the big hall where we will be present the poster. Inside the hall, there was breakfast composed of fresh fruit, bagels, juice and coffee on table and everybody was helping themselves. First, I looked for my presentation board number and put up mu poster. After that, I went grab some fresh fruit, some juice and bagels and then enjoy a nice and healthy breakfast. Then after, I was walking around meeting people and looking at others posters to see what kind of research they have going on and they new discoveries in Sciences. There was six of us from Phoenix College to attend the conference. We met there, helped each other set up the poster and then just hanging around waiting for the first talk of the day. At 9, we had the first talk which was about convincing the undergraduate to go for a PhD. It was presented by a teacher from ASU who shared his own experience of how he ended up going to graduate school. Two other teachers also shared their experience on the same topic. After the talk, everybody went back to his/her poster waiting for a judge to come so that you can present him the poster and answer his/her questions. I was waiting and after awhile a judge came to me asking me to tell him about my poster. I was anxious at first but i took a deep breath and started to present him my poster. He was really interested in the research and he even gave me ideas on the second part of my project which consists of sequencing the DNA of the bacteria and then compared them. he gave a me website where I can easily find the sequences of most of my bacteria and then a program to build a phylogenetic tree with the sequences. I was very excited! I believe this was the best experience I ever received in college and I am very grateful to everybody that help me accomplish this.

Here is the picture where we did the conference: Memorial Union

Finally done...

I am very excited to let you guys know that i finally finished my poster for the ASU conference presentation. It was not easy at all and I believe it was the same for my other peers. Now, I am glad that I am done with the hardest part. Remember that I told you guys that I was having trouble writing the introduction because I could not find any references or somebody that has done something similar to my project. Well, I finally came up with a good introduction for my project. This was the last component I wrote for my project and i was very glad that I ended up with something good. Now, it is over with writing and drawing, I am getting ready for the ASU presentation this Monday coming up March 4th. Like we all know it is not easy to stand before a lot people to do a presentation or to speak. Until now I do not know if we are going to present one by one or if we are just going to stand near our poster and people will stop by and ask questions. Hopefully it will be the second one. Anyways, I am getting ready for both. I am more than excited to be there on Monday and meet these varieties of people from all over the place and see what kind of research they are doing and also find out about the new discoveries in science. On Friday afternoon around two, Dijana brought the printed posters in the lab. They were looking very nice in the 3x3 size. I looked for mine and it was looking perfectly great and exactly like I wanted it. Supposedly, one person will bring the poster to ASU on Monday and we will get it from there but I preferred taking mine home in order to practice at home and then know pretty much that I have on the poster and also be ready for eventual questions. Now, I believe everything is ready and I am just waiting for Monday to go present. I am very excited and I am looking forward to doing good on my presentation. Wish me good luck guys!!!

Below is a picture of my poster