Goals:
Determining whether neuroscience is a good career path for me to pursue:
By immersing myself in a program focused both on neurology and psychology, this allows me to figure out if this is something I would like to continue studying. Because the medical field has such a large range of occupations and fields of study within it, narrowing down what I want my focus to be will help me to be more purposeful and efficient in how I continue with my education.
Update: I have loved working in the neurology/psychology field and am planning on continuing with it as my primary specialty as I look into applying to medical schools.
Improving assertive communication in a professional environment:
Being confident in my communication towards those with authority over me can be something scary; however, this is a skill I will need to use for the rest of my professional life whether it is talking with bosses or professor, I need to be able to be sure of myself and clearly communicate with them.
Update: Through weekly meetings with multiple doctors, supervisors, and coworkers, I have gotten more confident in my speaking with them and believe that I have improved on speaking professionally while also developing lasting relationships at the same time
To build lasting relationships and connections:
Developing healthy relationships with those in my workplace will not only make going to work more enjoyable every day, but it will also allow me to have a good group of references for future jobs or internships. Having someone who is respected in their field of study be able to back me up on applications can be a very helpful resource.
My overall career goal as of the present is to continue on to medical school, and become a neurologist. Neurology has always interested me because I think that I could really make impactful differences in peoples' lives as a neurologist and there is still so much to learn about it that the scientists don't yet understand. To do this, though, I will maintain a good GPA throughout my undergraduate education in order to get into a medical school that will set me up to obtain a resident match with a hospital.
How have my goals changed throughout the year?
I am still set on applying to medical school and have successfully determined an MCAT study plan that I will begin next school year :)
I currently have a new goal of finding another lab-based internship for either next school year or next summer that I will achieve by applying to a variety of options
Learning:
I am confident in my ability to form relationships with my coworkers, I believe I have done a good job of communicating with them on a deeper level than work-related conversation. I have also been better at asking questions when I am unsure or am just curious as to what else the team is working on.
I need to work on seeking out extra tasks that may result in failure, I typically just stick to what I am told to do but am trying to find extra tasks to help my coworkers' days go smoother. I also need to expand my vocabulary and integrate it into how I speak to the doctors and professionals that I work with. Because I work with a team who is conducting research studies, they oftentimes use words, phrases, or acronyms in their conversations that I do not understand but can research or ask in order to be more involved in those conversations.
This internship has helped me to gain a deeper understanding of my coursework because I get to see how the information and facts that I have learned are integrated into research experiments to learn even more. I also get to learn about the behind the scenes and all of the smaller things that go into compiling data and interpreting results which will eventually be then taught to students like me.