I was a Graduate Journal writer for Naturejobs in 2004 and have spent the past year finishing my PhD. The physical and mental toll of writing it up took me by surprise. I realized that not only my results, but my experimental designs, the criteria I used to review the literature, my interpretations and my understanding of first principles would all be under scrutiny. As I strove to explain my results, I gaped at the seemingly infinite magnitude of what I do not know.

As much as it was painful and humbling, I also found writing was a reflective and rewarding experience. It was a luxury to be able to focus on all aspects of my work at once, connecting the results from different experiments and finally bringing them together into an illustrative story.

I am in awe of the number of people who helped me produce this thesis. Listing the names of technicians, fellow students and a supervisor (who lived up to his job description) on an acknowledgements page seems to be paltry payback. I received much helpful advice, including one tip from a fellow student: “The most important thing to get out of graduate school is yourself.”

Provided that my defences go well, I will be out by early this year. My time, tuition and stress are not adequately represented by those 201 pages. But I hope that what I do in the future will be a credit to the talented people who helped me gain the skills and knowledge that I take away with me.