Student Experiences: Cristina Ramirez

"What brought me to LBNL was a program through my community college called Faculty and Student Teams (FaST). It's a program where students and a faculty member from the school are selected to attend and internship at the lab for the summer. Students that were interested interviewed with the faculty member and then were chosen. After the summer was over I wanted to continue my stay and I applied for the SULI (Science Undergraduate Lab Internship)."

Q: What you are learning in the lab?
Among the many things that I learned were techniques in microbiology. My first internship there, I worked with proteins and their surface layers and exploiting there properties for use in nanotechnology. I got hands on experience with gel electrophoresis and cell culturing. I also got to use equipment that is not available at my school for a more hands-on experience.

Q: How this experience is helping you in your career development?
This experience aided me in really focusing on what field of science I want to go into. The field of science being as broad as it is, this allowed me to see what I'm interested in as I pursue my career.

Q: Where are do you intend to go from here?
Right now I'm finishing classes at my community college to transfer to a 4 year university with a major in Microbiology. I'd eventually like to go to graduate school and obtain a degree in immunology.

Q: Anything else you would like to share about the experience?
I would say that overall, that internship was the best experience of my life. I met a lot of wonderful people and Tamas was a great mentor. I think it's great to have these opportunities for students, so that we can develop our strengths and be able to gain valuable experience. Especially in today's job world of needing experience, internships are a valuable asset to learn from and to work.