Circumstances hindered me in my attempts to get started with this project, or journey really. Suffice to say that, though not all is well yet, I am setting off on today. It’s not a terribly perilous one, but a journey nonetheless and I am happy to start travelling.
‘Where to?’, you might ask.
Actually there is more than one goal here. For one, I want to get this blogging thing on the road. Also, my longterm-ish goal is to land a PhD in bioinformatics. This blog-series will be concerned with both of course, but mostly speak of the latter. Blogging about blogging seems a bit too meta for now, at any rate.
To give you some background: I am a graduate in Epidemiology at the University of Utrecht, having worked for some years as a junior researcher for various projects concerning such things as occupational and environmental exposures to, well, anything really. However, I find this area of research to be quite unchallenging if not downright boring. Why then did I choose to get this Master’s Degree? A good question. I will blame that choice on an immature lack of introspection in my early twenties and a societal pressure to continue on the path of academic education as fast as possible. Anyway, I found the few bioinformatics courses I took incredibly interesting and even fun to attend. Knowing myself quite a bit better at this point, bioinformatics ticks all the boxes I need for a fullfilling work-life such as puzzling problems and ever challenging novelty.
My only problem has been how I would move myself to this area of expertise, having no actual work experience in the field. But after looking around and emailing some people I landed an internship with the prospect of a paper publishment starting at the beginning of 2025. This, then, is my first step onto the playing field. Of course I need to make preparations in order to be able to swim along the stream at a fast enough rate, like merging onto a highway. Thankfully, my future supervisor provided me with a tutorial and some reading material to get started. This blog-series will document my road to success (hopefully) and identify, for myself and for others, the pitfalls, inspirations and ideas that are sure to turn up.
I am reminded of a comic by Zach Weinersmith:
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-09-02
and can’t help but feel inspired to get started on this new one of many lifetimes.
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