David Stone Email & Phone Number

The most important lesson I've ever learned is how to learn, and I didn't learn it in a classroom.The professor over the research lab I was a part of was not afraid to let me fail. He wasn't worried about getting papers published (he could do that on his own). He started me on a project and gave me direction and let me figure it out. I asked a ton of questions, and he tried not to answer. He knew I would learn more if I figured it out on my own. It was brutal. Most of my experiences had been in classrooms where you can guess one answer, and if you got it wrong, you just get a lower grade and keep going. This research forced me to keep pushing until I found the solution.On a later research project, our team needed someone with knowledge of protein sequence comparison and protein modeling. Nobody had that experience, so I took the task because I wasn't afraid to learn. I delved far deeper into proteins than I had before and learned how to use a different kind of software that I've never used before, and I finished before our deadline. My experiences with learning how to learn gives me the confidence to jump right into anything I'm unfamiliar with. I'm not afraid to add new tools to my belt and accept new challenges.