About Me
As a sophomore in the School of Science on the pre medical track, I am currently double majoring in Neuroscience and Biology with a minor in Mathematics. At IUPUI I am also a part of Honors College along with a few extracurriculars. My favorite clubs include Neuroscience club, VIDA, ALD/PES and Biology club. Apart from academics and extracurriculars, I also enjoy volunteering and pursuing my hobbies in spare time.
The combination of my majors and minor is certainly unique, but is a perfect match for me. Neuroscience is a multidisciplinary field with chemistry, biology, physics, and mathematics all playing a role in explaining the complicated nature of the organ that controls our body. The brain is a wonderfully complicated puzzle and one which I am excited to explore and begin to solve. My love for complicated and long problems is also the reason I am minoring in mathematics. The process of solving calculus problems is very similar to trying to understand the brain, albeit much simpler with a clear answer. But nonetheless, both Neuroscience and Maths are close to my heart. On the other hand, Biology was a surprise discovery during my freshmen year when I realized that I not only loved learning about the brain but also about about the entire human body. Therefore, I decided to double major with Biology and take even more science classes.
While this internship certainly revolves around connecting academics with applications, it is also a learning opportunity for many other skills as well. One of the key skills that I hope to improve through this internship, is teamwork and communication. As a team member, I am cooperative, obedient, flexible, attentive listener, and involved learner. I am fairly good at communication, but I do prefer written communication as opposed to verbal communication. I understand that being a good oral communicator goes hand in hand with being a good team member, and thus I want to use this opportunity to fine tune my skills. As a team member, I am also responsible and complete any task given in a timely manner. I accept my mistakes and try to take any feedback given in a constructive manner. While my teamwork skills certainly work well in an academic setting, I hope to extend their use to the workplace as well.
Outside of classes, extracurriculars, and the internship, my hobbies include painting, photography, reading mystery novels, and traveling!
Click on the Experiences button below to learn more about me and my other activities at IUPUI!
Skills I am learning and improving through the internship
Flexibility
Adaptability
Responsibility
Creativity
Problem solving
Spring Reflections
Throughout this year I have had the opportunity to learn a lot about myself. Mostly being immersed in neuroscience through the internship solidified my career intent of working as a neurosurgeon, neurologist, or neuropathologist. As a professional, I have become more confident, flexible, and responsible. Most importantly, I have learned how to ask for help and confess that I don't know something. As students, we begin to think that not knowing is a sign of stupidity or lack of intelligence. I quickly became comfortable saying "I don't know" because in real life it is impossible to know the answer to every question and the solution to every problem. Once I started viewing my lack of knowledge as a scope for improvement, I was able to learn so much more from my experience at the lab. In any future career, understanding the extent of my knowledge and then having a strategy to expand my knowledge with prove to be a useful skill.
As a team member, I was attentive, respectful, and responsible. One of the most important skills I learned was how to accept feedback and use it constructively. As an intern and a novice in the field of neuroscience research, inevitably, I have limited knowledge and experience. Any work or presentation I give can always be improved and feedback helps me understand how to do that. It is very very tempting to view feedback as critique, but I learned how to view feedback as learning experience. After a year of feedbacks and improvements, I am so much more comfortable accepting my mistakes and using any given feedback and resources to improve.