Winter quarter is nearly over and I never thought I would learn all the amazing things I did in lab. But right from the start, I quickly realized that I had holes in my physics education. I realized that most of the physics courses I have taken were not as relevant to my project in Professor Chabinyc’s lab at first. There were also not a lot of similarities between the physics lab courses and this lab. Of course, there is no denying that these physics courses did set a solid foundation for me. But there was so much more to know. In some discussions that I had with my mentor, I was utterly confused because I have never taken an introduction to polymers class or even a chemical engineering class. I felt like I had to catch up real fast.

It was extremely difficult this quarter to balance twenty-two units and work with extra reading on semiconducting polymers and thermal annealing. After reading a considerable amount of papers, I began to make connections to what I was doing in lab to the material presented in the classes I have taken, filling those holes in my education. I never thought that concepts like free energy were related to changing the morphology of polymers through thermal annealing. (I included an image of a thermally annealed sample obtained through AFM for your enjoyment.) I spent most of my weekends in the library, ten hours at a time secluded in a room, connecting these dots and working on homework sets.When I got home from the library, I would eat dinner quickly and continue working. There were some weekends where I slept less than I did during the week.

Image from atomic force microscopy (AFM). Thermally annealed sample.

I know that I totally sounded like a shut-in from the previous paragraph. You just have to make some sacrifices. You just have to go the extra mile when you want to succeed. You have to put in the extra time to achieve what you want. Plus it’s not like I regret anything. It has been very rewarding. I didn’t want to simply go to lab and do what my mentor tells me to do. I want to understand what was going on; I want to have my synapses firing and creating new connections in my brain. I am very fascinated with organic solar cells and I am committed to the research effort. I would say that this has been the most demanding quarter I have ever hard and it was worth losing sleep. Going the extra mile doesn’t stop here for me; I will be doing more research and reading over spring break. And on a side note, I wish you all good luck on finals! Feel free to approach me if you need a pep talk!

Click this link for 50 ways to take a break! Might be helpful for finals!