02/06/23
I just finished getting all my bags together for my flight to America tomorrow. My flight is at 9am in Edinburugh and my dad is driving me down from Aberdeen tomorrow morning so I better get off to sleep soon. I’m feeling very nervous but hopefully everything will go smoothly tomorrow. I can’t wait to see what it’s like in America.
03/06/23
I woke up at 3am after about 2 hours of sleep to begin my journey to the US. After making the 3-hour car journey I arrived at Edinburgh airport. I got there 3 hours early so check-in wasn’t available until about 7am so in the meantime I got breakfast and picked up some US dollars from the exchange booth. I’d recommend doing this in advance unlike me because the exchange booth only opened at 7am and having some USD on hand would’ve made things a little faster. I met my new roommate I’ll be staying with in Connecticut in the line for check-in and check-in went smooth for me but she had to pay an extra fee for her cabin baggage since it wouldn’t fit on our regional flight to Dublin’s overhead lockers. This is another thing I recommend checking before leaving because our regional flight to Dublin had a smaller overhead cabin space than the international flight to Connecticut. Our flight was about an hour late which was annoying but luckily we were originally supposed to have a 3-hour layover in Dublin so we still had plenty time.
When we got to Dublin I collected my boarding pass from the ticket desk. Going through immigration was less scary than I expected, they just asked to see my DS2019, asked what I’ll be doing in America and took my picture. I finally set off on my flight to Connecticut at 14:00.
When I got on the flight I thought I’d won the lottery with the ticket allocation! I got put right at the front with tons of legroom and space to move around but there was a problem with the ticket allocation so I ended up giving up my seat so a family could sit together. Though not as much leg room at the back of the plane I revelled in the luxuries of long haul bonuses. I had a little pillow and a set of earphones at my seat accompanied by ¡¡TVs in the back of the seats!! I’d never been on a long gauge flight before so this was all new to me. There were TONs of movies, TV shows, games and music on these TVs ALL FOR FREE. Not only was I well entertained but there was a meal included with the plane ticket so I enjoyed a nice hot meal as I sat back and enjoyed watching Everything Everywhere All At Once and playing on my switch. There were also charging ports at all the seats so I could charge my phone! There was also wifi but there was a fee to use it so I opted to drop of the Internet for a few hours. All in all it was a great experience, a little stressful because airports are generally stressful but very comfortable otherwise.
When we landed in Connecticut we didn’t need to go through any passport checks or immigration since we did it in Dublin so it was a super quick baggage claim and hop on a shuttle to our hotel.
Tomorrow I’ll be going from the hotel to the air bnb where I’ll be staying for the next 2 months. Feeling relieved that I made it here, excited to see where I’ll be living/working and very tired. Looking forward to a good night’s sleep.
04/06/23
Today I checked out of my hotel and got an Uber to new haven. We couldn’t check in to our air bnb until 3pm so we spent some time in a local coffee shop while we waited. The house is really nice, me and Lilly have separate rooms and a decent sized kitchen and living room area.
Once we’d dropped off our heavy suitcases at the flat, we headed out to stop & shop to stock up on food. I’m not sure if this is unique to Connecticut but the groceries were SO expensive. A weekly shop which would’ve cost at most £50 from Aldi cost me $200 (around £170). So that was my stipend for the week gone. Another thing to remember in America is that they often don’t include tax in the prices they display on the shelves so beware because you might end up spending a lot more than you thought. For groceries though, the tax is very low (I paid ~$3 in tax for that huge shop but paid ~$1 in tax for a $7 sandwich in the coffee shop). You also have to remember to tip waiting staff/Ubers.
After such a huge shop we had to take an Uber home because we had more than we could carry. By the time I’d got everything put away and I’d finished bulk cooking for the next week it was already 11pm. I was EXHAUSTED and quite overwhelmed so I had a quick shower and laid out some clothes for my first day the next day and passed out in my new bed :)
05/06/23
Today was my first day at RallyBio. I didn’t sleep very well because I was quite nervous but I managed to get myself up and ready to be in for 8:40 to collect my company laptop and meet up with my HR representative Danielle. Danielle gave me some great recommendations for local restaurants and farmers markets. At 9am we had an IT Teams meeting with the rest of the summer interns to set up our RallyBio accounts. Then at 11 I met with my supervisor, Dr Mark Ma, to talk about my work for this summer. Excuse the lack of eloquent vocabulary but Dr Ma is very cool. He seems really passionate about the drugs developed at RallyBio. It’s the kind of passion that energises you and makes you want to do your best. I must admit I am a little scared of being a bit out of my depth but the reason I wanted to do this internship so much was so I could learn and be better so I guess I’ll just try my hardest to learn and be kind to myself for taking that time.
Afterwards I sorted out my I-9 form with Danielle and just focused on researching the RallyBio drugs/disease targets Dr Ma was telling me about.
Before leaving Dr Ma gave me a little assignment to do some rudimentary data analysis on some recent clinical data and kindly offered me a lift home which I was grateful for because it’s a 30 min walk otherwise.
All in all it was a good day but my lack of good sleep and high stress levels left me ready for a good night’s sleep.
09/06/23
Today is the last day of my first week at RallyBio. The adrenaline of being in a new place is beginning to wear off and I’m feeling sufficiently settled in to the RallyBio offices. Everyone I’ve met there has been super nice to me, it makes me want to work even harder to impress them. I’ve received many pizza place recommendations and even been offered out to lunch with a few people from the office. This week has been mostly about acclimatising to the office and gathering some information/reading around the topic of my internship, less intense than I had anticipated. I have a lot of nervous energy and want to get stuck in to the work right away but for now, my manager has instructed me to enjoy my weekend hehe so I’m planning on visiting Boston with my flatmate!
I’m looking forward to a busier week next week and more adventures in ‘the land of the free’.
02/07
I’m near enough my midpoint of my internship now I thought I’d write a little reflection. I feel like I’ve settled in nicely to the office. Since my last entry I’ve organised a few meet ups with staff to make some connections and learn more about the industry. It’s really interesting hearing advice from lots of different people around the office. A lot of the people on the clinical side have PhDs but it’s interesting hearing how their paths deviated in between and after finishing their postgrad studies. One guy, Doug has the most interesting story, he used to be a woodworker and then went back to school and became a really successful biochemist? It gives me hope for my future which I’ve always been super worried about since I don’t really know where I am going/ what I want to do.
My project is pretty much complete. Another person in the office has mentioned another project to me which I’d love to look into more. So far my biology studies from uni have come in SUPER handy because most of what I’m doing is critically analysing research papers and data mining which is what I’m used to doing for essay research and also for general exam revision. The knowledge of biological assays and drug design pathways is coming in super handy for understanding what is happening in meetings across different teams (pre-clinical, toxicology, phase 1/2/3, pharmacodynamics etc.). It’s definitely helping me understand how these concepts we study in class are applied in industry. Though I’m getting a lot more practice networking and communicating on teams (which was one of my goals for improvement this summer), I don’t feel as though I’ve gained a lot of skills, most things I’m working on I already know how to do but I’m definitely improving in other areas I hadn’t anticipated.
Besides work I’ve had such a great time traveling around the east coast. Living in Connecticut has its advantages in that we’re right in the middle of Boston and New York so I can easily take a day trip there. I’m filling up my scrap book quite nicely :). Last weekend for example, me and my flatmate, Lilly, went to NYC pride, the weekend before we were in to see Hamilton on broadway and hand New York hotdogs! It’s so much fun exploring the east coast. We’re planning to fly down to Washington D.C. at the end of the month to see the capital and to meet up with other saltire interns. I’m super excited!!
