Next Chapter of My TRIP by Taahzje Ellis

​It feels like just yesterday was the first day of TRIP and now it's soon coming to an end. TRIP has been an “amazingly hard” experience, it was very fun to learn about fruit flies and perform experiments but it definitely wasn't easy. Trying to balance assignments and summer fun was very hard (and still is) but it was a truly rewarding experience that if I had the choice I would do again in a heartbeat. When I first joined the program I had never experimented with any kind of experiment on flies, but after this I can confidently say that I feel very comfortable working with flies now.

As I explained in my last blog, my research question is “ How does caffeine affect fruit flies in isolation”. Caffeine is very common in day to day life and now more than ever isolation has also become common in day to day life due to covid. So I chose this topic because it can be easily relatable for people. To test my question I used the open field test to test the anxiety and energy levels in the files to see if the caffeine helped the isolated flies mood and anxiety. Unfortunately my hypothesis was proven wrong and the caffeine didn’t really have an effect.

Nevertheless I loved the process of trying to make a research question and eventually getting to test my own research question on the fly. It was an amazing experience that I will never forget, and I will continue to use the skills that trip taught me later on in my life in future career prospects. TRIP has changed my life in every positive way and for that I am grateful to this program.