What To Do When Things Go Wrong

Natalia Brody is a junior majoring in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology. She was awarded a Fall 2017 Independent Grant which she used to conduct research on the relationship between estrogen and fear generalization under Dr. Brian Dias. 

The first (and most important) thing a young scientist is taught is “the hypothesis.” In middle school, we are taught that a hypothesis is a potential explanation for a scientific phenomenon. Once a little older, if you’re lucky, the abstract idea of a hypothesis comes to life as you write your own research proposals, posters, and even lectures on these “potential explanations.” But, in perhaps the most important lesson of all, you’ll eventually learn that these hypotheses change— their potential nature comes crashing down just as easily as they were created to begin with. This is an in valuable lesson my participation in the research grant program allowed me.
Last fall, my research project started a little like this:

“Our hypothesis has changed!” These words should have excited and intrigued me. Instead, I felt deflated: how could the hypothesis I’d worked so hard to understand, study, and proudly explain to friends and family be overturned so quickly? How could I be wrong? How could we be wrong?

With this new development, I had to forget a lot of what I knew. In the blink of an eye, I was learning about brain regions I had never heard of and observing new techniques I should pick up, since the ones I already knew could no longer apply. I had to forget, almost unlearn, a good chunk of our project’s initial trajectory. I swallowed my pride and powered through the frustration and confusion; I matched my negative emotions with literature searches and more trips to lab to learn new parts of the project, whether it was how to work computer software for data analysis or how to execute an ICC (immunocytochemistry experiment).

In an almost poetic turn of events, just as our hypothesis changed, my attitude eventually did too. I began to see beauty in parts of my project I hadn’t noticed the first time around, and was introduced to exciting bodies of knowledge I would never have known had my project remained unchanged. I was able to purchase supplies to continue my project using my research grant and eventually fell in love with my project all over again. I can never seem to catch the shuttle to work quickly enough, I’ll go on excited tangents about my project to anyone who will listen, and few weekends and school breaks are labeled too busy for another exciting experiment.

It is moments (and projects) like these that remind me why I have loved participating in research at Emory—it has taught me so many parts of science that a classroom never will. In lab, my mentors taught me that being a great scientist doesn’t mean having a 4.0 GPA or having the most prestigious academic awards. Instead, being a great scientist means being an amazing (sometimes messy) combination of grit, humility, versatility, and creativity. As young scientists, we are training to solve some of the greatest puzzles of our universe, and we are bound to encounter a few challenges along the way. Anyone can memorize the anatomy of a brain or make a conjecture about scientific phenomena. But what happens when you’re wrong? What happens when the rules change? As for me, I’ll know to sit tight because these moments are bittersweet: only fleetingly bitter and perpetually sweet.

Thank you to the Independent Research Grant Program funding my project and to my amazing mentors for their unwavering encouragement and support!

Visit the Undergraduate Research Programs website to learn more about applying for Independent Research Grants.