Professional Goals

There are a few goal that I would like to achieve during this internship and they are to learn all the safety procedures of a lab, familiarize myself with writing and publishing research papers and how to present my work in a better understandable way for others. I am a strong believer that practice makes things perfect and day by day I notice certain improvements on the targets that I have set upon myself.

I have set three goals for myself for this lab and I wish to achieve these goals during the period of this internship. I try my best to improve these goals in every possible way everyday expecting a difference in my improvement


1.Increase my efficiency in lab work

  • How to make use of waiting periods in protocols
  • Keep track of the time that I used for certain procedures and shorten time
  • Being careful not omit anything from the given list of protocols
  • Become familiar with obtaining exact volumes solutions from pipettes
  • Be cautious of following sterile techniques
  • Maintaining the required conditions while performing lab work
  • Learn how to plan out experiments that will help in time management


2. Focus on the accuracy and precision

  • When pipetting liquids or aspirating liquids being cautious of leaving any liquid behind
  • When performing cell counting, always try to get a fair sample from cells
  • When making new media for cells, adding right amounts of ingredient solutions to make different media for cells
  • When labelling cell plates and entering information, avoid making mistakes in the data


3. Develop analytical skills

  • Question about things that I didn’t understand or about things that I am curious to learn during new experiments
  • Observe the cells using a microscope and keep a track of their growth
  • Keep in track of the color of solutions, identify any debris in solutions that interfere with the stem cell growth
  • Ponder on why certain things didn’t gave results as predicted
  • Find more ways to keep a sterile environment



Career Goals

I wish to work as research assistant once I graduate, and I believe this lab has made me feel prepared to work in another lab. I want to complete a genetic counseling masters degree and to start working as a genetic counselor.

I have interests in certain fields in biology and such as genetics, botany, and microbiology etc that made me to consider of becoming a genetic counselor. When performing research work, team work holds an utmost importance when trying to coordinate with others, carrying out experiments, having suggestions and discussion and having positive mindset especially when it comes to trial and error. A believe the profession that i am interested with, requires such disciplines and passions to become a professional.

The experience that we receive from working in an actual lab is a lot more different than having lab as a course. You get to see the trial and error and planning out experiments and organizing materials for the experiments, being aware of certain conditions for experiments require you to keep maintain during experiments helps to us to perform well as individuals and I feel that I is a strength of any of us who received this internship opportunity.I need to work on my investigative and analytical skills more to which is one possible weakness that I believe to have in myself, designing experiments is something that I have less exposure to and I am looking forward to exercise those things that I have been less exposed to, and become an expert on specific things.


There are few thing that I could do to explore more of this pathway

1. Reading research articles in free time and becoming updated of the literature

2. Attending information sessions

3. Getting to know about professionals and having discussions with them.





New Academic goals

1. I decided to continue with the Neuroscience major because I found my self more interested in people behavior and causes for such behaviors

2. I also decided to to do minors in Chemistry and Biology since I have a strong background in these fields and I believe that might be helpful for me in future.

3. I am trying to apply for summer internships related to neuroscience to get a better understanding of research conducted within the fields

4. I have applied for International Peer mentoring program to get involved in the campus activities and gain skills in management, communication, and networking.

5. Meet with my adviser and get a better understanding of capstone classes that will be available for in my senior year.


Skills that I look forward to acquire

1. Network to with experts

2. Work developing constructive feedback

3. Following work ethic

4. Self evaluation

5. Explain my work in an attractively and clearly

How to acquire new skills

1. I wish to participate in the meetings and workshops and get a better understanding of timely topics that are being focused nowadays

2. Increase active listening skills and get better note taking skills during workshops or meetings

3. Following proper documentations in the laboratory notebook

4. Self evaluation to enhance my logical reasoning, persistence, and analysis.

5. Finding good methods to explain concepts in an attractive and a understandable way for people with available and limited knowledge and resources

Assurance of Goals

I got to know quite a lot about things that take place in an actual lab by getting to work on certain lab work, what are expected from labs, people in labs do not know everything and they try their best to be update with new information by reading research papers. I learnt that there are labs that are specifically for manufacturing that involves repetitive tasks and research labs mostly involve figuring out new information and those options also got my interest. Based on my findings I feel comfortable to work in another lab once I graduate.

I am seeking to get a another internship that relates specifically for my major, which is Neuroscience and I am looking forward for the research methods, ethics and diagnosis methods related to this field specifically and the Stark Research institute tend to offer such opportunities to interns. Once I gain a good amount of experience and knowledge to specific field of my study for research, I wish to move into being a physical therapist. I also have an idea to become a pharmacist and specialize in the filed psychopharmacology by attending pharmacy school and it will bring a good amount of challenge since it is not offered in IUPUI. I am really interested to do both the positions that I have mentioned and I am willing to gain more experiences and enroll in classes that relate specifically for my major.