Never Give Up

This week in ISM I went on my second interview and it was conducted with Dr. Toprak, Medical Foundation Scholar in Biomedical Research, who runs his lab. Through this interview, I learned how important it is to be able to work effectively with people in a group situation. I expected Dr. Toprak to remark that obtaining sufficient funds to continue research was one of the most challenging elements of his career, but I was shocked to learn that he thought it was working well with his group when he was in control. For a research proposal, the two main components of it are a good idea of what to study, but also a well-thought-out plan. There won’t be much success in a proposal if it is lacking either of these, as they go hand in hand and you can’t have one without the other. In the case a proposal does get declined, a helpful tip that Dr. Toprak shared is that instead of getting completely frustrated and scratching the project, first try to propose it to other companies to see if it has any success in gaining funding, if not making corrections or alterations to the proposal will be necessary. I believe that if my plan was to be declined I would feel so defeated that I wouldn’t keep trying to propose it again to other companies, but that isn’t a good mindset and I should change and act as Dr. Toprak described.