Internship

Workplace

Skills 

• Leadership

• Communication 

• Multitask 

• Math 

• Time Management

With communication and leadership, I will be able to talk to my coworkers about my experiment and how they are responding, which will help me in my internship work. When I have to discuss what work I need to do with my supervisors or when I need to know something that I don't know, communication will also be helpful. Math will be useful to me because I need to compute certain experiments, so being familiar with math formulas will be beneficial. Using multitasking and having that as a skill will help me because there are situations where I have to do multiple things at once. Time management will be beneficial to me since it will enable me to know when and how long to complete an experiment.

I've always been the type of team player that collaborates with others and works on tasks as a group. Additionally, I've begun to communicate with others when I need assistance or when we're working on an experiment together. I was accustomed to working in teams and everything relied on cooperation to ensure that everything was done correctly, but now I primarily work alone and do tests by myself. This is how my internship has changed. Finding the data we required and the amount of fibrous damage in the heart, aorta, and kidney was one of my contributions. My efforts are significant since I worked on the scanning, scoring, chopping, and staining to get the fibrous percentages they required.

Successes and Challenges

I believe I was effective in my internship using PCR (polymerase chain reaction), which determines the type of DNA that causes hypertension, and with specific medications and antidotes like IPflox and BCL6. In PCR, DNA is collected, antidotes are added to see what they trigger, and the DNA is placed in agarose gels and run under TBE to see which DNA is triggered. My supervisor's assistance and the materials I received, such as articles and videos, explaining the significance of the task and how to complete it correctly, were the main reasons I was successful in completing it. Completing human blood sample collection on my own, rapidly determining cell counts before they die off, and gathering plasma is another accomplishment I have made. This achievement taught me how important it is to move swiftly in certain experiences to prevent them from dying out and how to treat blood to prevent contracting diseases from it. As a nurse, I would be handling blood a lot, so knowing how to manage blood and what might be in other people's blood would be helpful in the future.

One of my challenges as an intern is that I spend a lot of time not performing experiments, which is beneficial since I study or do my homework during that time, but I would like to be doing much more. Another problem is finding it tough to do some tasks that I haven't been comfortable performing yet, but I hope to get comfortable soon. These difficulties resulted from occasionally lacking the necessary supplies for the experiment and from feeling uneasy in particular circumstances. Talking with my supervisor to see how I can overcome and whether there is additional work I can accomplish will be the help I receive during the spring semester. Cutting cells into tiny, micrometer-wide slices and putting them in a warm water bath without them folding up in the wind and needing to be cut up again was another difficulty I encountered this year. I was able to overcome this challenge by repeatedly practicing slicing until I could do it flawlessly.