The goal of the mentorship was for Student to learn more about immunotherapies and develop his scientific writing skills. Overall, we focused on immunotherapies ranging from checkpoint inhibitors, to oncolytic vaccines, but focused most heavily on CAR-T cell therapies. We spent the first few meetings going over papers, and trying to pull out their main ideas, examine the methods and learn to read the types of graphs and images that were included in the manuscript. We also discussed the different sections of a paper and what level of detail should be included in each. During the second third of the mentorship, Student would identify a paper and he would attempt to write various sections of the paper himself (abstract, intro, results, discussion). I gave Student pointers on capturing the big question, setting up the reader for the hypothesis being posed and the methods/results, capturing an adequate level of detail so that the reader knows what the researchers did, and, in the discussion, not only recapping the findings reported in the paper, but discussing the potential limitations of the findings, next steps, and major impacts. In the final third of our mentorship, Student was challenged with coming up with three final project ideas building off of papers we read in the course of the mentorship. We settled on a question after discussing the ideas and level of difficulty each of the projects would be to write about. We chose one based on different antibody therapies for treating complicated lupus cases. He then wrote a final report over several sessions that mimicked a paper. We discussed experimental design, generated mock data, and reviewed his writing. Overall, Student accomplished all of his goals with tremendous success. His reading skills and writing skills improved over the course of the meetings and his knowledge of the immunotherapies developed substantially.
I was very impressed throughout the mentorship with Student’s commitment to the learning process, his receptiveness, his organizational skills and professionalism. Student very clearly communicated what he desired to get out of the mentorship. This clarity is unusual in a student at his stage of development. Student was able to grasp most of the high-level science from a scientific article, which is no small task for topics for which he lacks the full foundation to support. His writing, for his stage of scientific development, is better than average and improved over the course of the time. He should continue trying to write compelling arguments in his work, avoiding colloquial terms or vague statements, and writing with a coherent thread across a paragraph or multiple paragraphs. One small suggestion is that he should spell and grammar check before showing someone his work. Not that this is a big deal, nor is it hard to fix, it’s just that the first impression of a work can matter and simple errors suggest that the student didn’t reread the work even once before submission.
Student was very professional and organized throughout. He was conscious about scheduling and timing during our sessions. He came with an agenda each time, consistent with what we agreed on the previous time. He was always prepared with the writing or tasks we had set out. This is a great testament to his commitment to the work and learning. He was always respectful. He is ahead of the curve when it comes to maturity in his work. These skills will bode well in college and beyond.
Overall, I saw Student grow throughout the mentorship and I also very much enjoyed working with Student over the course of these few months.
