CJC Student Wins AStar Science Award, 2018 to 2019
CJC Student Wins A*Star Science Award, 2018-2019
Professor Andre Choo, Institute Scientist at Bioprocessing Technology Institute, and Director of Graduate Affairs at A*STAR Graduate Academy, presenting the award to Aakash Dubey, 2T34.
Aakash Dubey, 2T34, CJC Archbishop Scholar 2018, is the proud recipient of A*Star’s prestigious A*Star Science Award (JC) given to students who demonstrate particularly strong aptitude and interest in mathematics and science. Aakash was conferred the award for two years running - 2018 to 2019, and shares his experience below.
‘The project I worked on has certainly made me more aware of the realms of biology that is not covered by my A-level syllabus. Learning about eukaryotic fungal cells (C. albicans cells) has allowed me to deepen my understanding of a broader range of cell types. Being taught how to manage the plethora of different lab equipment has rewarded me with invaluable experience that has enhanced my sense of capability and confidence in handling them to obtain my own data. In addition, I also deeply enjoyed using the equipment that required a great level of patience and meticulousness was always required.
My experience has made me much more comfortable in dealing with uncertainty, especially in research. Though my exposure to experimentation skills in school is fairly adequate, researching in Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) has allowed me to be a lot more creative. Having to use critical thinking skills more extensively has definitely made more confident of my experimentation skills. Usually, for our laboratory practical exercises in school, we have rigid procedures to follow. However, during experimentation in IMCB, we were allowed more liberty when it came to planning our own experimental procedures. Additionally, though our end results were varied, reassurance from our research mentors made me comfortable with uncertainty in our results. The realisation that our results were affected by a confluence of factors and that we could always analyse and review our experimentation methods to enhance them, has made me more accepting of failures and confident when it comes to overcoming obstacles that I had to face.’