My Internship
Successes and Challenges
Successes
One of my first ‘wins’ as an intern was early on when I noticed some inconsistencies in the records of compensation of participants in the study I primarily worked on. In order to remedy this I reached out to my direct supervisor and he showed me the resources I could use to check participants' compensation status. Using that resources I was able to cross check records of participants contact and survey status with the record of their compensation to ensure all participants had been appropriately compensated. Efficient and accurate compensation to participants helps to improve response and survey completion rates for future survey periods. The direct impact my actions had on the study encouraged me to be more proactive in my role.
The direct impact my actions had on the study encouraged me to be more proactive in my role
Another success I experienced during my internship was when I wrote Excels formulas and assmebled them to build a data cleaning template. I was asked to undertake a data cleaning project and build a tool that could take the raw output from a Qualtrics survey and produce analysis ready data. The Excel template I built was able to combine multiple rows of data into a single column, condensing the data into only the information important to the researchers.
I was able to build the template with minimal help from others in my lab, with the majority of the guidance I recieved from an initial meeting to discuss the project and goals for the finished tool. By asking intentional questions and considering both the guidelines set out and the goal fo the tool I was able to intuit possible challenges and what may need to be done to overcome them. After completing the project I felt an immense sense of accomplishment as I was able to create a tool that plays a significant role in the lab and cuts down on the time necessary for the analysis process. This experience gave me the opportunity to gain a sens of independence and importance within the lab as well as giving me the chnace to utilize my expertise in Excel and grow both as a researcher and data analyst.
My most recent success has been in applying for UROP: a program that allows me to stay on at my internship site and conduct research. After meeting with the primary investigator and a postdoctorate in my lab, they agreed to the process and the postdoctorate stepped into a mentor role for me during the application process. The application construction process involved me drafting my proposal and bringing the drafts to meetings with others in my labs for their review. I recently heard back from the program that my proposal was accepted so I am preparing to begin the research process as my LHSI internship ends.
These successes have not only increased my confidence and given me the chance to utilize skills gained from other endeavors, but also prepared me for future research experiences. The specific hard skills in Excel, Teams, and other cnotent editing platforms have allowed me to practice utilizing the platforms as well as begin to understand how these programs may be utilized in a professional research setting. For example I have learned new formulas in Excel that I can utilize to help organize and manage data much more effectively. In addition to these hard skills, my successes have also shown me the importance of growing your soft skills that relate to the field, such as professional communication, independence, and time management, which has played a crucial role in all of the successes mentioned. These lessons and experiences have helped prepare me to begin to consider how I may put these into practice with my own research, which in turn better prepares me for my future academic and career plans.
Challenges
One challenging aspect of this internship has been time management. It has been difficult to manage my time effectively and ensure I am being efficient about the way I use my time when I am clocked in. This has been a problem especially since taking on more than one project. I sometimes find myself working on participant contact when I have an idea about the data cleaning formulas on Excel and swapping over, only to have to switch back when something urgent comes up in the email. This hinders my ability to work efficiently on either task, as the constant swapping between tasks divides my focus and segments the work so I have to refamiliarize myself with the task before I can resume working.
To address this challenge I have started to write notes to myself when I have an idea or thought related to another task on my agenda. This method allows me to save important thoughts by writing the down for later use, while also avoiding the consequences of switching between tasks. This practice has helped me to stay on task and stay focused on tasks for longer periods of time with distractions that delay my work. I plan to utilize the strategy I learned in future settings to improve my time management skills.
I plan to utilize the strategy I learned in future settings to improve my time management skills.
Communication was another aspect of my internship that presented challenges over the course of my time at the Hulvershorn lab. The semi-virtual schedule others in my lab followed made communication of information and queries more difficult than face to face questioning. For example, the transmission of time-sensitive participant survey completion and compensation preferences were difficult, with some participants slipping through the cracks. To resolve this issue I met with my supervisor and we discussed hwo to avoid this issue.
The resolution we came to was adding a section into the contact tracker being used to track participant compensation. This also entailed scheduling a time into my weekly schedule for me to send weekly reports of participants who were ready for compensation along with preferences for compensation. This change in procedure allowed for a reduction in mistakes with participant compensation as well as faster response times to participants ready for compensation. The communication at a larger scale was resolved similarly, by scheduling in meeting points for questions and details to be shared as well as myself using the weekly lab meetings as an opportunity to communicate with others in my lab in a more active way.
I learned to push myself outside of my comfort zone and speak up during lab meetings
Due to the semi-virtual nature of the lab my internship was with, socializing and networking also posed a challenge at times. While communication was encouraged and constant at my internship site, there are unavoidable challenges when communicating via email. As with any written communication, emails can get misconstrued and the meanings and intentions may get lost, as a result there were occasional breakdowns in communications that slowed my work or impeded others’ ability to answer my questions. Email communication also made it more difficult to network within my labs as making small talk over email is difficult and it was hard to find the right time to ask others at my lab about their experiences.
Our weekly Zoom meetings were very helpful in overcoming this issue. I learned to push myself outside of my comfort zone and speak up during lab meetings to ask questions and talk with others in my lab. Another way I worked past this was by expressing my interest in the lab's area of research and reserach in general. Through this I was able to ask others in my lab about their career paths and whgat advice they had for someone starting out. These methods lead me to gain confidence and ingrain myself within the social culture of the lab.