Is it normal to feel sentimental attachment towards your undergraduate research project?
I received my final grade for my independent research project and it dawned on me that this chapter of my life is closing. Other than the fact that I will never set foot in that lab again (probably), or that I won’t see my colleagues again, I spent last night crying about how I won’t work on the protein I spent the last year studying, ever again. I wish I was joking.
It doesn’t even have a name yet, other than its alphanumeric code on NCBI. It’s currently called “Conserved protein of unknown function” on the database. It’s not mentioned in any published literature other than a publication in our lab briefly mentioning it (which is why we started studying it). I’m not even allowed to mention its name. But I’m weirdly attached to it. My research is over, I’m graduating, and I’ll be going to a different school for grad school. I will probably never work on this gene again, but I’ll never forget its name.
Someone in the future will give it a name, probably. Or it’ll be forgotten and deemed not important enough to study. I hope it won’t experience the second fate. Whether it gains a real name or not, I will always remember my conserved protein of unknown function. I’ll remember its code name. I am devastated that I won’t know the scientific future of this gene.
It doesn’t belong to me, obviously. But it’s “my” gene, in a sense, and I am grieving that I won’t work on it again. Am I nuts?