Resignation

In August, I have decided to resign from my volunteer post at the marijuana research lab. I have been thinking about my future course of action for a few months now, and after much thought and discussion, I realize that it's time for me to move on from this lab.

There were several reasons why I resigned. As I discussed a few times throughout these blog posts, the pace of the laboratory clearly sets a series of limits regarding what can be done in the lab. Since our work can only go as fast as the experimental cycle is run, there were often times where there was not enough work to go around to all of the workers in the lab. I felt a bit frustrated about the slow pace, and I often wished that there was more I could do. Furthermore, as a volunteer, there was an obvious limit to the amount of responsibilities that I could have at the lab. An RA has a range of tasks and responsibilities around the lab, which all revolve around the execution and analysis of the research. Our RAs were given much more responsibility than the volunteers due to their educational and work experience, and the volunteers could only assist in a variety of different tasks (data entry, taking vital signs, etc). Although there were many tasks to keep me occupied, after working at the lab for 12 months, I had felt like I had already done most of what I could do there many times.

Additionally, it will be great to take a few months to relax and focus on my classes and hobbies during a semester. I am usually so packed with many things to do - between work, clubs, classes, and homework, I felt like I did not have sufficient time to put my full effort into any one of these activities. Now that I am taking a semester break from working on research, I hope that I can experiment with spending more time on my classes and my extracurriculars.

Nonetheless, this research and this blog has been fun! I've learned a lot! I appreciate whoever is reading this for taking the time to do so!