My study/research experience at Taiwan

Nothing has come easy to finally say that I am taking the final step to finish my research experiment. The last piece of this puzzle called the Master Degree for me is the thesis. Along the time that I’ve been here, I’ve been focused in all of my courses, but on the side, I was always reading millions of journals or papers related to my topic, and also writing a paper review, but to tell you the truth it was not as easy at it seems, mainly because each paper contained information related to other papers, so at the end I ended up reading hundreds of papers and not just the one I found. I think reading a lot has improved my English abilities such as speaking and understanding, and also now I know a lot of new technical words related specifically to aquaculture.

My professor has always been giving ideas during all the process of writing the thesis, looking for information and also been there for my millions of questions. Sometimes I thought maybe I was bothering him in some way, but at the end I’ve realized that my professor is not only there to guide me in my research but also he has been there when I was feeling sick, sad or when I just needed to talk to someone. My lab mates along the way and for all this year and half have supported me in many ways, like going to the aquaculture station the hand sorting of shrimps for my experiment, teaching me how to weight them, showing me how the recirculation system works and also what steps I should follow to have a better understanding on how to make the experiment become a successful one.
Doing some calculations to
find shrimp feeding rates.

This research has not only been dedicated to do my experiment in the feeding regimes for my shrimp, but during the summer vacations, my professor taught me how to raise shrimp from hatchery until they were in a good size to be raised in grow out ponds. This research has had a lot of steps taken along the way since I came here, from finding information, reading some other examples of experiments, raising shrimps, knowing what parameters should be measured at the end and why. One important thing is that here I can really use all the materials of the lab, and if I don’t know how to use them I just ask and there is always someone that volunteers and shows me how to use it. For me, there is never a ‘’no you can’t’’ there is always the ‘’let me show you how to use this’’.
I cannot say everything now is done, or that I am waiting for the results to finish and go home, at the end more than finishing my research, there is the good memories I will take back home and all the friends I’ve made during the time I was here.