happy belated bday! hope that the surprise party was fun and that you're feeling good post-paper submission-- seeing you talk about the horrors of writing about philosophy made me laugh. we're all in semiotics hell forever <3
as far as labs go, i will say that it's not at all shallow to judge them based on their web design, but i'll also note that labs with terrible site designs gave me the best research opportunities-- usually, a shitty lab site means that they offloaded the responsibility of webdev off onto an undergrad rather than expending time and resources on stuff like "hiring a graphic designer" and "putting effort into the aesthetics", and i tend to think that the lab heads who do that have their priorities in order (and also tended to pay me pretty well to manage their websites when i was an undergrad, so i have my loyalties). not to be a terrible influence or anything, but i'll also point out that it is technically possible to have multiple research positions at the same time while you're a student; i made the bold choice of averaging 2.5 paid positions at a time through undergrad and grad school and, for all of the negative consequences on my sleep schedule, it was a lot of fun and introduced me to a bunch of different aspects of medicine and medical ethics super quickly (plus, y'know, Lots Of Publications(tm)). i'll also plug part-time research opportunities in bioethics/medical ethics as well; not as many undergrads go for those positions, but i had an awesome time interning at the bioethics center and wound up helping my mentor with book publication in addition to journal articles, which sounds like the kind of thing that might be up your alley?
best of luck with midterms, don't forget to make time for socializing, and i'm excited to hear more from ya! also, feel free to add me as a neighbor if you'd like-- i'm happy to add you back!
Replied on: September 25, 2026 at 12:20:19 AM
Hi again, 9! It's awesome to see you back, and your messages are always so kind and in-depth.
Thank you for the lab advice, I'll keep it in mind! I think I may actually commit to the lab with the ugly site, because when I toured, they seemed like the absolute sweetest group of folks. Thank you particularly for the encouragement to try and pursue more than one lab at once, which is something that has felt like a guilty pleasure to even consider. Bioethics sounds fantastic and I was planning to fit a minor in the subject in anyways, so thanks for mentioning it. I'll look around for opportunities in that.
Thanks as always for the well-wishes! I've added your button to my site and hope to see the same from you soon! Much love!