On why I love UVa

This blog is dedicated to the student who commented that I seemed to love UVa a lot.

I do. I came to UVa from an institution run by a certain person, who can for the purpose of this blog can be simply Dr.X. The only thing I can remember of that place was that it was a nightmare. I do not know if anyone saw The Devil wears Prada. Dr. X. was truly awful. She was running this show where she was the supreme commander and everyone had to kowtow down to her. It was a dictatorship. None of us students had any access to her. She was never there to discuss any problems or any results. The research was bunkum and I know many of the results were fabricated. No one was interested in research anyway. We sat around chatted, did some pottering about and left the lab in the evening.

Then I came to UVa and it was like a different world. Faculty and students were at par. It is not that I can call faculty by his or her name, it was the fact that my opinions were solicited, and that I was allowed to think. I could tell my adviser that he was wrong and not get reprimanded.

The best part was the classes. I had done my M.Sc in biotechnology and had hated every minute of it. I could not remember the facts or wrote long essays for short notes. In B.Sc I had done Chemistry and the question paper was absolutely analytical. We had to solve problems. Here I was not expected to do any analysis. Remembering the Biochemical pathways was torturous. No one taught the logic of it.

But at UVa, in none of the exams I was expected to write long answers. I was expected to read papers and analyse the data. I was expected to design experiments. Oh, many of them were rubbish experiments that I designed but hey, at least I was allowed to think.

There were other things. Yujie, Vanicha, and I went driving across the country, we attended operas and concerts, we had potlucks, we went for hikes and got lost. It was fun.

I grew up a lot. I do not know if I made right decisions in life but I do not regret one bit of my UVa years.