Internship

About the Internship

Internship Project(s)

Video Viewing Project (Part 2)

Summary - We looked at who was viewing videos based on the peer teaching schedule for 18 labs (i.e. we excluded labs that the entire class would watch…labs for the thigh and legs, pelvis, superficial back, pharynx, larynx, oral and nasal cavities…i.e. these videos cover content in more than one lab).  We compared dissecting to non-dissecting students. Within the dissecting group, we looked at students who present peer teaching and those who ‘assist (because for every lab they present, they assist 2, we divide all ‘assist’ variables by 2).  

Prediction: Students being peer taught will feel worried about the quality of peer teaching and will watch more videos.

Results - The opposite of the prediction in 2021 and 2022.  

There were no differences in 2023. In 2024, the non-dissecting group started to view more videos, but there was an overall (and statistically significant) decline in viewership. 

Workplace

I have a lot of experience working in situations that require timely and effective communication with others, especially figures of authority such as shift leads or project supervisors. I learned these skills by working in various sectors of the service industry and volunteering for many years at the Houghton County Fair as an assistant. Due to this experience, I am a very proficient communicator and can complete work at a very efficient pace, which is very helpful in a lab setting with strict deadlines. As an anthropology major, the knowledge I have gained through previous college-level classes also contributes to the overall project's effectiveness. I've taken multiple anthropology classes in which paleoanthropology is discussed and have a lot of practice in writing laboratory reports due to previous lab courses. Along with these past experiences, I am well-versed in writing essays and believe that all of these skills will prove to be very profitable for the research we will be conducting.

I've had a very unique experience at this internship because I am the sole intern at the site. I have no co-workers and generally don't work in any traditional team settings. I work on long-term projects assigned by my supervisor (Dr. Andrew Deane) with whom I will occasionally do progress checks. The projects I complete are, ultimately, raw data building blocks for research that will be done anywhere from one to ten years down the road. While it may be that I am generally just doing "grunt work" for the most part, the information and data that I recover is crucial for any future research and reports that will be done.

Successes:

• My internship requires me to use quite a few different research methods, specifically with devices and software programs to analyze data. Unfortunately for me, I had no prior experience with the vast majority of these devices/programs. I’m proud of myself for figuring out how to use these new methods in a fairly short amount of time. My first new method to learn was the Artec 3D scanner and associated software systems, and I won’t lie it took me a couple of weeks, multiple messed-up-looking 3D models, and the assistance of both my supervisor and YouTube videos to figure out how to properly use the machine/system. Once I got the hang of it though, everything went very smoothly. It also gave me a lot of confidence for the other new methods that I have been or will be introduced to throughout this internship.

• I felt successful after meeting my first serious project deadline for my internship. For the two or so months of my internship, I was preoccupied with gathering idle data until the medical school class that my lab supervisor is the professor completed. After that, I was given what I considered to be my first real assignment of the internship; organize and transcribe data from three years of gross anatomy teaching labs. This assignment was to be completed within two weeks, which would allow the supervisor to do the necessary final analyses and submit the research as a research abstract. I’m proud to say that I completed it before the deadline, and it gave me a lot to look forward to in my future projects and their respective deadlines. 

• For the spring semester, I decided that I wanted to work more regularly and more often. To do this, I created a schedule for when I would go into the lab at work. At my internship, there is no set work schedule as everything is based on a completion basis -- as long as you meet your deadlines, it doesn't matter when you come in or for how long. When I was creating this work schedule though, I wanted to take into account the amount of school work required for each of my classes that I was taking in the spring. While I am still working on finding a perfect balance, I am very proud of the progress that I've made in comparison to last semester. 

Challenges:

• At the beginning of the fall semester, I had a pretty hard time figuring out a schedule that would work best for me and the work that I was completing. At my work site, we don’t have a set work schedule as long as we complete our work before our set deadlines. While this flexibility is super useful for accommodating my class schedule and workload, I had a hard time figuring out how to squeeze my internship work into my schedule alongside everything else. Eventually, I figured out what days work best for me and my current schedule. As the spring semester began, I struggled less with this scheduling issue. Early on, I set aside three separate days and periods when I would go to work. While this does ultimately cut out time that could be spent on homework or studying, I believe that it made my work periods much smoother.

• As previously mentioned, I’ve been introduced to multiple devices and software programs for my internship. For many of these new programs, I never learned how to use them as they are used in specific situations that I had never been placed in before. The first new experience for me was the Artec 3D light scanner and its associated system. With this, I had to figure out how to scan objects in the real world and then create 3D digital models from the data collected using the light scanner. I spent weeks figuring out how the system worked and what resulted in the best possible models. I won’t lie, I made a lot of horrible, funky models while I was practicing but whenever I was having serious trouble, I would reach out and receive help from my lab supervisor. As I’ve started to work with more systems that are unknown to me, I continue to ask for help until I understand how it operates.

• In the spring semester, I started a new project that would take a long time (one to three months in length). For this project, I would be making measurements of the dentition of numerous different Old World monkeys using a 3D modeling software system. At first, this project proved to be very stimulating as I was required to take 66 different measurements for each specimen (23 measurements, done three times for accuracy) but as I grew more accustomed to the process, it became less interesting. In more recent weeks, I've had a difficult time staying focused and engaged in my work. To encourage myself to stay mentally engaged I've started listening to things like music, podcasts, and even television shows. Since these activities have worked with varying levels, I'm planning on testing new ways to stay focused and engaged in the project.