Another week in the life of Hoxie.

It was a great week, in fact. Stealing the show was my week at work. On Monday, I was given an assignment: figure out if it would be feasible to predict individuals’ blood types in three blood groups based on available (limited) genetic information. I knew virtually nothing about blood on Monday, but after reading about 20 journal articles covering the molecular basis, genetics, and immunology of blood groups, I was able to put together a pretty comprehensive report about prediction feasibility for a meeting on Friday. This was a neat project for a few reasons:

1. Deadline. Needing to know my stuff at Friday’s meeting kept me motivated without overwhelming me. If I had been given more time, I’m sure I would have used it, but forcing me to do it in a week kept me on top of things. The meeting went great, by the way.
2. Research. Because my master’s degree didn’t entail a thesis, I didn’t read many journal articles while I was at BU. However, reading and digesting articles is a skill I need to acquire sooner or later, and like most skills, I think that 99% of it is practice. This project gave me some great exposure to finding and understanding journal articles. Granted, I think that articles about blood are slightly more approachable than articles about statistical techniques or algorithms, but it’s a step in the right direction.
3. Competence. When I started going to project meetings, I’d often get worried when I didn’t know the details of a complicated laboratory procedure or ongoing experiment. Then I realized that, if I had an advanced degree in the field and 10 years experience doing this stuff, I’d feel pretty comfortable talking about it too. Even after only a week of research, I was feeling pretty comfortable with the basics of blood. It felt good to know something about a topic that was previously a mystery.   

I also read a great book this week that I’d highly recommend to all of my 20-something and 30-something readers: I Will Teach You To Be Rich. The book is full of down-to-earth, easily digested, often humorous personal finance writing. I used to read the IWTYTBR blog frequently, but it had been a few years since I had given personal finance a lot of thought, and I decided to update my finances before heading to grad school. Based on his blog a few years ago, I started using credit responsibly, maxing out my Roth IRA whenever possible with a low-cost index fund, and keeping intermediate-term money in a high-yield ING Direct savings account. Since reading the book, I’ve opened a Charles Schwab High Yield Checking Account to replace my current checking account and I’ve applied for a great cash-back credit card to save money and boost my credit rating further. I’ll also be using low-cost Vanguard lifecycle funds to automatically take care of asset allocation, enrolling in a 401k at work (this option just became available to me), and automating my entire financial setup using websites like Mint and direct deposit so that I don’t have to give personal finance much thought for a while. The benefits of taking action now far exceed the time it would take you to pick up the book and get your financial situation under control, so check it out.

I’m also reading one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read: Good Calories, Bad Calories. But that’s a post for another time.

posted by Hoxie at 11:14 am & filed under Life, Work | No Comments »