Sports Psychology Honors Contract

When I started in the honors college and IU Indy, I was more comfortable with presenting information in the form of a paper. Mainly because of the way it avoided the need to actually present any of my information. After starting my honors journey, I found myself experimenting more with the ways that information can be presented and shared. I found that I could effectively share my information in multiple different ways and not everything needed to be shared as a paper. In this project I talked about a couple experiences I had with working with patients and how different motivation techniques work for different people. The therapists I work with are amazing at their jobs and getting to know their patients to know what kind of reminders or rewards are going to motivate them to work towards their recovery. Recovery can be really hard for patients, and I have seen a wide variety of diagnoses and conditions. Motivation is very important when working on difficult things, without the right motivation or support it can be really easy to give up or not see the end goal of all the hard work you are putting in. Finding the right motivation can be difficult too in most cases the type of motivation will depend entirely on the task or the target goal. 

I really enjoyed working on this project because it combined two of my interests. All of my honors contracts have been related to some sort of medical condition or rehab in some way. I want to be a pediatric occupational therapist so most of my interests in research or practices have to do with rehabilitative therapy. I really enjoyed the freedom that an honors project gave me to connect whatever I was working on to my future career goals. It was a good way to not only share what I am working on but to prove to myself that I am in the right field of study for my goals. I am happy to share the experiences that I have made especially at work; I love talking about the things I have done and learn at Riley.