Lev Lazinskiy

Utilizing Proper Resources

Piggybacking of my last post, and sticking to this scholastic theme lets address another topic. Using the proper resources to your advantage.

Lesson learned about which libraries to study in and which libraries to get resources from.

There is a reason why tuition at most universities is sky rocketing. If you think of the cost of all the resources that a University library provides, I am surprised they get by off tuition alone.

While doing research on Alzheimer’s disease, I went to the local public library with the naive notion that I would be able to find proper resources that would benefit me in my project. Sure they had books about Alzheimer’s disease, but they were all in 16 point font and designed for people to read when they find out their mother just got it.

One hour at the University Library introduced me to a whole new world of learning and information and I couldn’t be more excited about it. I got more useful information from the abstract of one resource then I did in that whole entire book.

For example, the premise of my research was that there are three genes associated with Alzheimer’s disease. APP, PS1, and PS2. Little did I know, (and not even mentioned in the public library books) is that these genes only effect people with FAD (Familial Alzheimer’s Disease) which is only present in 1% of the cases. The other cases are all considered Sporadic Alzheimer’s disease, and are caused by a variety of genetic and environmental factors.

I would have never known any of this information, and I would have been writing a bunch of bull crap. Thank goodness I invested my time.

Moral of the story - get the most out of your tuition and use your university library resources.