Today I went on a kinesiology lab crawl!
“Wait,” you ask, “what’s that?”
A lab crawl is like the nerdy version of a club crawl, which basically when you bounce from nightclub to nightclub. Though in this case, you go from lab to lab. When you get to each lab, the lab experts at each place tell you what their research is about.
It was pretty cool to see what type of research actually goes on in the field of kinesiology. I mean, you don’t expect there to be much, right? Although a lot of people don’t even know what kinesiology is, let alone have preconceptions of it…
But there’s actually an awesomely wide range of things being studied by kinesiologists! We saw a robot that mimics the way a person shifts their weight, and someone throwing darts whilst blindfolded. The researchers, most of whom are actually teaching assistants in the School of Kinesiology, explained who they were (more often than not, Masters or Ph.D students) and what they did in their research.
Honestly, the stuff they talked about was way over my head sometimes. I was one of the few first years in attendance, so I guess the event must’ve been more geared towards older students. But even though I didn’t understand all the content, we had a chance to mingle with the TAs and I got some useful information about getting involved in research, and becoming a Ph.D student! And oh boy, is it a lot of work.
All in all, I think it was a good experience! I’d definitely recommend (what, recommendations again?) doing a lab crawl at least once in your years at UBC.
Unless you’re an arts student, but I’m sure there’s probably an equivalent for it somewhere.
But anyways. If you can, do it!
PS. Bulletin! The director of UBC’s School of Kinesiology, Dr. Sparks, is retiring. Le gasp.
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