My biggest strength in the lab is that I am eager to learn everything. I am not afraid to ask questions to better understand why we are doing each particular task. This results in me having a very full understanding of the research the Lukkes lab is conducting. With this mentality, I have been able to become a reliable team member who is capable of teaching others. The Lukkes lab has been fortunate enough to welcome new volunteers at the start of spring semester and I have been able to aid some of them in learning about the tasks being run and the overall research questions.
My biggest goal is to be able to complete tasks independently while fully understanding their purpose and connection to the "big picture". Although I am gaining confidence in my laboratory skills, I am still struggling with tying the data we are getting into the overall goal. To begin working towards this goal, I have started reading more of the past and present literature from alcohol studies focusing on social isolation.
My contributions have been helping impact the larger goal of the Lukkes lab through data collection and analysis. My biggest role in this internship has been running behaviors and collecting data, which I am now working to analyze so any emerging patterns can be noted and further investigated.
I have learned a lot from the members of my lab. Most of them are either currently students or recently graduated students from IUPUI, but they all vary in what their future aspirations are. There are members of my lab who are full-time and are attending graduate school for clinical psychology or neuroscience while others are also training to be veterinarian or paramedics. The members of the lab all having different experiences have helped me learn a wide variety of new skills that I am able to use in lab and out of lab. The diversity of the lab allows those who are more experienced in wet lab tasks to focus their efforts there while others can focus their efforts in behavioral tasks or data analysis. This results in a well-rounded team with multiple, effective, moving parts.
One success I have felt as an intern is being able to independently run multiple behavioral paradigms used in our lab. While training, I made sure to take thorough notes and ask questions about the logistics of the paradigms we were using. I currently feel like I understand them well enough to run them and collect the data without making any unnecessary errors. This ability to understand the behaviors we’re running and what the data means is essential to helping me connect my tasks to the overall goal of understanding the impacts of social isolation on alcohol consumption.
The most challenging part of my internship has been all of the training I need to complete and the limited availability of the sessions I need to attend. With the nature of working for the school of medicine, most of the people needing the training are working full time or are graduate students centering their work in the lab. This means they have much more time to attend these sessions while I have a much less flexible schedule with my additional job and classes. To combat this, I have been actively communicating with LARC to ensure that there are sessions available for me to attend. Additionally, I have been working with my supervisor to make sure that I can access the areas I need to for completing my tasks. This open communication has helped emphasize the importance of forming a strong relationship with those in my lab. Because I have gained the trust of my supervisor, she is able to help me obtain the information I need to be better at my job.