Arian's Experience
Group Managers ·What were the most challenging moments in developing the app?
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My top challenging moment was serving as the project leader for both the bioinformatics pathway and for the B2 group for Rshiny project. For example, as a project leader for the bioinformatics pathway, I would organize different subtasks for smaller groups within the team to complete, create powerpoints with all the information needed for the modules, and ensure that the entire team kept on track. At the same time, I also was doing similar tasks to manage my group for the Rshiny project, such as assigning individual tasks to subgroups or creating a timeline. I was also completing the same tasks as my team members while serving as a project leader for both these groups. At first, it was stressful, but after getting organized and working with the other project leaders I was able to efficiently managed both teams. Another challenging moment is more on the technical side. For example, Module 4 in my opinion was probably the most challenging module. In this module, we had to conduct limma analysis on the dataset and create volcano plots and visualize DEG. I was able to generate the volcano plot, but my plot displayed the probe ID’s instead of gene symbols, which would give a better meaning to the plot. However, after getting help from Anya and working with my team member, I was able to figure this out.
What were some of the most enjoyable/memorable moments from the project?
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One of my favorite moments from the project was creating my first Rshiny app. I created a blood pressure tracker where the user would input their systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and then the app would interpret the blood pressure reading for the user, such as by telling them if it was “normal”, “elevated”, or “hypertension”. I spent several hours working on this app and struggling with the R syntax, but when I finally got my first app to work I had the biggest sense of accomplishment. I also really enjoyed learning about app design when working on the Rshiny project. For example, I worked on deciding the layout of the app, such as where the buttons should be placed or what colors the webpage should be. This gave me insight into both user experience design and bioinformatics at the same time, and I learned firsthand how important it is to consider how the user will interact with the app.
Were there any unique aspects of the project that you particularly enjoyed?
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I really enjoyed learning the variety of different skills from the different projects in this internship. For example, from the modules, I had the opportunity to learn R syntax through conducting quality control, data normalization, and statistical analysis of a lung cancer database. Then, through the R shiny project, I was exposed to the overall process of app layout design, which included using figma to create a template layout and utilizing bs4dash for template code.
What is the one thing you will take away from this experience?
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I think the main thing that I will take away are my newfound project management skills. By being a project leader for two different projects, I had the opportunity to see firsthand how important it is to break down a project into more manageable pieces and create a timeline to allow the team to reach its fullest potential.