About Me

I am Junior at IUPUI and my major is Neuroscience. I chose Neuroscience as my major because I became really interested in the brain after I took an anatomy class in high school. I was finding myself doing research of my own outside of class, which I never did in any other subject. Coming into college I knew that at least had a passion for the brain, and that I would hopefully find more interests as I studied a wider variety of subjects.

Teamwork

My strengths as a team member include my detail-oriented work style, my flexibility, and my ability to problem solve. When I am taking on a task, especially in a situation that is important to me, such as work or school, I am always making sure every little thing is correct. Just making sure the big picture looks good is fine, but I have always felt the need to make even the small things perfect, even if it is more difficult or will take more time. I am also always flexible on a team, which means I am willing to help others if they are in need, but also change tasks if priorities shift. I pride myself in not getting stuck on one thing and being my best at whatever position I am needed. Problems almost always occur when working on a team, but it is in everyone's interest that they are solved quickly and effectively. I have always been able to look at problems quickly and objectively until a suitable solution is found. Sometimes, I might not be the right person for the solution though, and I am always willing to ask others for help if it is necessary.

My experience being on the team in the lab was very positive and I tried to be the most helpful team member I could. It was really hard to feel like I was contributing to anything at the beginning because of how new everything was to me, and how experienced everybody else already was. As I started to get more familiar though, and as I started to work on my own project, my questions became much more detailed and insightful and having real conversations about the research I was doing was much easier. My role on the team definitely changed over the year, mostly because of how little I knew at the start. I had to be acquainted with everything first, before I could really understand what I was doing on a more scientific level. This means that I went from being somebody who people had to catch up so I could understand what was being talked about, to someone who could provide my own insights based on the study I was conducting.

I think that this idea of teamwork has played an immense role in my ability to be a professional. I know that going forward, there won't be a lot of work that I do entirely by myself which means that having the ability to communicate ideas and findings to others on a team in a professional environment is going to be very important. Being on this team in particular, where I pretty much knew nothing about the topic going into it, was very helpful in being able to professionally communicate to others who may not understand a subject as well as I do.

My Experiences and Skills

My job experiences up until now include fast food worker at Arby's, movie theater clerk at Eastside 10, and a warehouse worker for SDI Innovations. All of these were mostly when I was in high school and I didn't expect to learn anything from any of them. To my surprise though, they were all able to show me how much pride I took in my work. I found out that no matter how small the task that I was assigned I would always do it to the best of my abilities and even though I didn't have the most sought after job in the world at the time, I took it seriously. I also learned a lot about how much teamwork is required to run a business like these. Everybody had to work together and do their best so that everything could run smoothly, and if somebody didn't know something, there were always others around who could help them out. All of these jobs really helped me grow as an employee first and foremost. I didn't really know that I would take work so seriously and that I would actually end up enjoying all of these jobs. They also all allowed me to work with other great people who all helped each other in various ways.

All of my past jobs have given me a great perspective on what kind of work I enjoy doing. I initially thought that I wouldn't like doing anything that involved fast food or a service industry. I am not the most social person, and so I thought the amount of new people I would see would tire me out quick. Ironically, I ended up liking these jobs a lot. The amount of new people that I saw actually made the job pretty enjoyable and the consistent support of my coworkers made it all the better. I also learned fro my SDI Innovations job that staying on one or two projects for a long time didn't bother me either. That job involved the creation of a lot of books and planners for various school around the country and I was assigned only one or two at a time. This means that for multiple hours at a time I would just be with one school doing the same actions over and over. While this probably doesn't appeal to most, I didn't think it was too bad. I knew that it was tedious and that it was going to get repetitive at some points, but I knew how important these were to some of the schools, so I always tried my hardest. I was also blessed with many great coworkers who helped me a ton and knew just how to make the hours fly by.

Now that this internship has almost finished there is almost no end to new strengths that I have identified from working here. I very much enjoy using all of the scientific equipment, I love going through this different stages of a study to finally get to the end and be able to communicate my findings with others, and I loved that I got to dive deep into a topic that I had never really studied before and many other things. I now know how passionate I can be about these things and I that I can be quite skilled in them too making this kind of career perfect for my future.