Summer School Diaries
Diary of the 2003 Summer School on Theoretical and Computational Biophysics
Monday, June 2 -- Ana Verde
I arrived in Urbana at 7 pm on Sunday (after being up for 24 hours straight), so
I felt pretty tired on Monday. I was late for the first talk, because I thought
that it began at 9am and not 8:30am. I thought it hadn't been a very good idea to
start earlier on the first day, given that people would be more tired, but I
also thought that the really tired ones (like me) wouldn't miss a lot by cutting
the first class.
I liked the introduction about the potential of VMD, particularly the emphasis on "One can see many things just by looking", with which I agree entirely. I would have liked the speaker to have provided a definition of terms like "residue", "betastrand" and similar ones that I am unfamiliar with, not working with proteins. I managed to understand their significance as the lecture went on and as the speaker illustrated what he was saying with VMD images of proteins.
"The high point of this day was seeing how the speakers and the tutors at the hands-on sessions were willing to help us with everything. I felt that I would actually learn to do things and not just learn that they existed."
I thought the introduction to MD simulations was also very good. I didn't know
anything about it and it provided clear information on the spatial and temporal
scales accessible to MD, as well as more specific information regarding "tools"
available in NAMD, like solvation.
The hands-on molecular graphics tutorial was a bit long so I couldn't finish it, but was very clear and easy to follow, and provided valuable information that we used in subsequent tutorials.
I thought the lectures were clear, and I was particularly happy about that, not being a native English speaker. There were some speakers in other days that spoke too fast and/or did not worry about being articulate. They don't remember that people who do not live in English speaking countries will have problems understanding them.
At the end of the day, I felt like I was drowning in information, but it's always like this in these schools, so I wasn't very worried.
The high point of this day was seeing how the speakers and the tutors at the hands-on sessions were willing to help us with everything. I felt that I would actually learn to do things and not just learn that they existed.
