Fiona Chace-Donahue

Meet Fiona

Having earned her Bachelor’s degree several years ago, Fiona has now decided to pursue a Physician Assistant’s program for which she needed a microbiology lab course as a prerequisite. As a stay-at-home mom, she also needed the flexibility of an online offering.

“If this had not been offered online at UCSD, I would have had to find a community college program that would allow me to bring my baby to class—probably not feasible. So my only other option would be to wait until she’s older, but I’m in a time crunch. I’ve been accepted into PA school, and I needed to take the course by December.”

Despite having taken a microbiology lab during her undergraduate program, Fiona was unsure of what to expect in the online version of the course.

“When I first unboxed the kit, I was really impressed with how organized everything was. All of the materials were pre-packaged for each experiment. And as I started my first lab, I was happy to discover the video guidance. It truly exceeded my expectations.”

Using the lab management platform also helped Fiona. “It made things feel a little bit more real life as opposed to just being in an asynchronous class, watching videos. We were able to apply the knowledge and skills we were learning, using our hands to really see theory at work. Learning about antibiotics, for example, and seeing which ones the bacteria we grew were resistant to was so eye opening…I’m watching this happen in real time not just hearing about it on video.”

💡Light Bulb Moment💡

“I had taken a microbiology lab course about 8 years ago in person. It had expired in terms of pre-req time, but I can now say that after having this experience online, I feel like it covered everything the in-person course did. I practiced all the same kinds of skills like culturing and swabbing—and feel confident in being able to apply them in the real world.”

My Most Memorable Lab: Aseptic Technique & Culturing Microbes

“I loved the ones where we swabbed surfaces around our homes and then plated and created cultures. That stood out because it showed us how gross the surfaces of our homes may be. It was cool that we were able to grow the tiny cultures right at home and then use them for our experiments. I also really enjoyed using the v-scope. We didn’t have to look at all of the slides, but I ended up looking at all of them because it was so interesting!”

Drawing Conclusions

Like any good experiment, you work your way through the scientific method to analyze the results, reflect on your findings, and draw your conclusions so you can move forward with new knowledge and ideas.

So now that you’re at the end of your online lab course, tell us: what did you learn and what advice might you give after your experience?

I would tell students to read through the entire instructions before you start just to make sure that you know exactly what you’re doing. And if you’ve never taken an online lab before, but have taken an in-person lab, you’ll be okay. You’ll feel confident in using lab equipment, doing cultures, handling pipettes, and safety protocols.

I would tell instructors that if there are more opportunities to have video examples of different techniques or procedures that are a bit trickier throughout the labs that would always be helpful!

Is It Worth It?

I didn’t think the cost was significant. I would have paid at least the same amount to do it in person. While there was still a cost, it was at least comparable, if not less expensive, than doing it in person. I definitely felt pretty happy about the cost.