Goals
CommunicationÂ
More specifically, one of my goals is to be able to express my thoughts more clearly and to feel more confident when I am unsure of something or have an issue. Communication is key in every aspect of life; being able to get your message across is important in order to avoid misunderstandings that could lead to major mistakes. To improve on this skill, I plan to work closely with my teammates at my internship site, solve problems in the workplace and attend events for LHSI interns. Working with others at my site and solving problems will force me to communicate, and I will have to think of a way to say what I am thinking in a professional, constructive manner. I will also have to understand when someone is explaining an issue to me; I will have to actively listen and ask questions when something is unclear to me. Attending LHSI events will allow me to meet other interns, which can be a little bit more laid-back. Even so, I will have to talk about my internship site in a way they will understand, and they will also be explaining their internship site to me. Overall, the steps that I plan to take should help me become a better communicator, and since communication goes two ways, I am hoping to improve in both directions.
At this point in the internship, I believe my communication skills have definitely improved. I feel more confident in getting my point across, and I am much better at deciding what is important to share with others at my workplace. Although I can see I've made progress, I know there is still plenty of room for improvement. Since this is the skill I am still not 100% sure about, I plan to focus in on it more in the near future.
Time management
I usually plan out my day, but sticking to this plan is difficult. Sticking to my schedule is crucial to maximizing my productivity throughout the day. I am confident in this skill, but there is always room for improvement! As more opportunities arise, making my time work with everything I want to do will be important. My plan to improve on time management is to take on more responsibilities, learn to prioritize, and keep a planner. Taking on more responsibilities to become better at time management may seem counterintuitive, but as I mentioned, I'm pretty confident in my time management skills, so the responsibilities I have now aren't very difficult to me. This is why I hope to pick up more little by little; I will be able to maximize my productivity while still tending to all the things I need to do. Prioritizing is another aspect of time management I should focus on; I have trouble deciding what to do first and how much time I should dedicate to it. A planner has helped me a lot with this; I've been able to not only plan out my day, but but also plan the time that I should have certain things done by. This has helped me figure out what's most important and dedicate a reasonable amount of time to whatever the task may be.
Now that I have been working the internship for a while, I have had the time to sharpen my time management skills, and it's all paid off. I have stayed on top of my academic and personal responsibilities, all while still leaving free time! I'm pretty proud of myself because although I didn't struggle much with time management at the beginning, adding responsibilities and tasks to my usual list would have been difficult without simultaneously focusing on staying on top of it all.
Application
I easily grasp concepts I am supposed to learn, but I find it difficult to apply these concepts to real world problems. I hope to gain this skill throughout my internship so that the knowledge I acquire throughout my life can actually be useful to me. Applying what I learn to real life will help me in seeing the bigger picture and knowing how it relates to our projects. I plan to keep thorough notes over what I learn in both school and work; writing things down will allow me to look back at the things I don't understand, and I can study them on my own time and eventually understand these topics. Once I have a good grasp on the things I need to know, I will keep these concepts in mind when trying to solve problems or figure out a new topic. Background information is key to problem-solving and learning, so knowing how to use this prior knowledge will be a huge step forward in becoming better at applying what I learn.
Application is a skill that took some time to learn, and I am still trying to get a good grasp on it, but I feel like I am headed in the right direction. The biggest thing that helped with this was reading articles provided by my supervisor. I spent the first few months of my internship passively reading them, but as I began doing experiments from start to finish (rather than just helping out with certain steps), I needed to understand the content in those articles in order to know what I was doing and why I was doing it. I began to take more detailed notes and actively read the articles, which has helped me gain so much more knowledge about the research.
Current Career Goals and Professional Growth
My ultimate goal has been to become a forensic pathologist. Forensic pathology is my goal because it encompasses many of my interests, and it is a position that serves the public, which has always been an important aspect to me. I have interned for a forensic pathologist before, so I have an idea of what the day-to-day work is like, and I believe that it fits my strengths and my personality. I thought I was very sure of this goal, but recently, I've been starting to think that "sure" isn't the right word; I think it's been more like tunnel vision! I never really considered other career options, so I've been trying to do that recently. One of biggest options I've been looking into has been lab work; whether it's research or something like a forensic lab. LHSI has helped me see the dynamics of a lab and decide if it's the right routine and environment for me.
During my internship, I've learned about different career opportunities, and I've learned to expand my view outside of my "tunnel vision." Although I'm not 100% decided on anything at the moment, I've done a better job at keeping my options open and keeping an eye on opportunities that interest me. As I keep growing professionally, all I hope for is a variety of opportunities. I hope to work in places that will help me explore other options and decide what's right for me. But, as of right now, I can surely say I've grown as a professional over the last semester and even this one. I've attended events such as lab meetings and conferences that have both equipped me with skills such as asking questions, knowing where to look for even more opportunities, discussing research with colleagues in a professional manner, and much more. I feel a lot more confident in professional settings now that I've gained these skills. As I plan to continue seeking diverse opportunities in research, I know that there are also areas I can improve on, such as communicating my work and ideas clearly (hoping to practice this at the showcase!) and confidence in job performance. In the future, I plan to seek opportunities that will allow me to hone these skills and build upon the ones I am already confident in.
Looking back at the goals I set in mid-January, I can say that I've made some progress, but not as much as I expected. I am okay with this because I have been reconsidering career options, and some of these options involve not going to medical school. Although I am still trying to approach MCAT prep, I've slowed down on this to make time to research other options, such as graduate school. Overall, even though I haven't made as much progress as I would have liked to, I am not upset or discouraged because I've been using that time to open up to other ideas for the future.
Learning
Based on the survey, one skill that I've noticed I'm already more confident in is confronting challenges and failure. I'm much more willing to take on tasks that are more difficult than what I am used to, and I take failure a lot better than I used to. Instead of dwelling over my failures, I take them as a chance to learn what to do next time. I also use it as a chance to get some feedback on what I could be doing better. A skill that I still could use some work on is independence. I often need clear instructions on what to do and rely too much on others when I get stuck. I should start taking more initiative and being confident in what I'm doing so that I can get my tasks done quicker and more efficiently.
The internship has helped me gain a deeper understanding of the complexity behind the "basic" concepts I learn in class. For example, this research involves looking at the processes of transcription, which I've learned several times over several biology classes. But, during the internship, I've had to look closely at transcription in hepatic stellate cells, and being able to focus on this one example of transcription has made me see that it is a very complicated process that involves so much more than what is covered even in upper-level classes. Aside from the actual science, I also have a better understanding of how labs run. As a STEM major, knowing lab etiquette is essential to being able to get along with lab mates and getting work done efficiently, so I'm glad I've learned these skills early in my career.
Since the fall, I have improved a lot on independence and integration and application, and I could still use some work on communication. Although I've grown a lot in this aspect, I want to get to the same level of confidence I have with independence.