Mentorship

Literal

·     Done.

·     Manjula Gunawardana

      (626) 817-0883

      m.gunawardana@oak-crest.org

Interpretive

I gained insight into science in general - the thought process behind, the community engaged in it, the challenges it poses.  Manji often gave me pearls of wisdom I will carry with me into college and the lab, and his positivity, his eagerness to turn an obstacle into a learning experience inspires me.  The interns and employees I met showed me that there are many roads to success, that it is never too late to follow a passion.  Some of them just discovered a love for science, years into college.  Most are going to PCC with the hopes of transferring into a UC.  Before Oak Crest, I was under the impression that to be successful, one has to enter the "best" college, and right after high school.  This is not so!  Opportunity lies everywhere.  

My experience here also aided in my college choice.  I was in love with Pomona College as junior, but continually heard how the UCs are ideal for research, how going to a UC would better my chances of getting into my graduate school of choice.  My mentor and some interns at Oak Crest told me otherwise, opening my eyes to the benefits of a small college like Pomona in research - less competition, more one-on-one professor-to-student learning, close-knit environment.  Furthermore, Pomona is solely undergraduate - so I won't be competing with graduate students for spots in labs.

Overall, I feel I have a greater understanding of what it takes to succeed in science.  It takes social capability, a forward-thinking mindset, tireless inquisitiveness, and perseverance.  There's more to that list, but those are the four I've found to be most important.

Applied

I found my second and third answer through mentorship.  When Manji first proposed the tar extraction project to me, we discussed the long-term goal of it - to isolate functional genes coding for oil-degrading proteins.  Why?  To apply to bioremediation of course!  Running through the extraction protocol I realized how hard it is to extract DNA from tar and looked up reason why, chancing upon keywords that would later help me with research on bioremediation.  Quite a bit of pharmaceutical work is done at Oak Crest, inspiring me to venture outside of environmental applications for extremophile research into organic synthesis of pharmaceuticals in particular.  When I asked for details on this, Manji pretty much gave me the reasons for my answer in a nutshell, guiding the relevant potion of my iSearch paper.  Mentorship helped me with a my basic knowledge as well, with gathering intuition and getting a feel for key concepts in searching for my answers - the basics of needs and functions of the average microbe, enzymes and how they work - I know these seem simple, but embracing a broader picture of my topic, of biology, of how things work in general helped me "logic through" my EQ and the answers to it.