The past month has definitely been a journey for me. I feel like I have had a lot of personal struggles, but also a lot of growth as well. During the time leading up to my internship, I had little to no motivation. At one point I did not think I was going to be able to obtain an internship and had no longer cared where I went. My expectations were low and I used that as a shield to protect me from disappointment and setbacks. When in time I did receive confirmation from an internship site that they wanted to work with me, I was relieved but I also questioned why they would want me to work for them. At the time I was in a place where I felt like I did not deserve good things to happen to me and therefore I felt wary of the upcoming experience. Once entering the internship I was struggling a lot with my mental state and stability. Here is where my slacking off on school work reached its worst point. I no longer felt like trying and had proceeded to isolate myself emotionally from those around me. I had been carrying what felt like a weight on my shoulders and it was only until I opened up to my family that I was able to start a change in my lifestyle. One of the main causes as to why the issue got so bad was because I had tried to take on more responsibility that I could handle. I wanted to show that I could manage to do things on my own and fix all of the problems I caused that had slowly been building up over time. Reaching out had so far been the hardest part because I had to accept that I could not do it all on my own, that I had to get help from others in order to move forward. Although in doing so I was able to get a better understanding of work-life balance. I am learning how to ask for help from others and knowing when it’s time to put things down. Managing my time has always been a struggle for me, so setting time apart and diligently focusing on a task is something I have been working on. Right now I am just a teenager who sometimes just needs a shoulder to lie on, for people to accept me and not define me by my mistakes rather who and what I can achieve in the future.
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Since I worked in a laboratory, their routine is usually a lot of repetitive tasks that ultimately lead up to a positive or negative hypothesized result. Although I wasn’t working with Kauffman Labs long enough to see and work with them through their entire process, I was able to help them with their regular tasks during my time there. I helped run PCRs, gels, do pup checks, lice tail samples and got the opportunity to do many more things. By doing these I got to help my coworkers out with the work that they needed to get done for their experiments on reproductive health. I felt that these contributions were meaningful because I know that they're a step in a process that will lead to a better understanding of our bodies reproductive health. Looking back on my first day I remember feeling anxious and feeling the need to act really professional and meticulous in front of all the staff. Now thinking of my last day I see how much my attitude has changed. I felt comfortable being myself there and I was able to make mistakes but I didn’t feel bad because it was just another opportunity for learning and I knew that the people around me wouldn’t think any less of me because of it. Leaving Kauffman Labs made me feel saddened because I really enjoyed working there and hanging out with the staff. It was an amazing opportunity that helped give me a better understanding of what kind of path I would want to take for a future career.
In the time that I’ve spent at my internship, I’ve developed what I like to call a visual friendship. I wait each morning until the clock strikes 11:45 and I rush out to get my lunch. A quick walk upstairs to the break room where I pick up my food and take a sharp right towards a meeting table. I sit and wait, rhythmically tapping the heels of my feet as I organize my things. I plug in my headphones but I wait to put them in my ears. Then she walks in, no older than 50 I think, a lovely lady really. The same line always on repeat, “Hi, how are you?”. I reply ”good” and ask of her the same. We know nothing about each other, we never speak another word. A half smile and a wave to the other as one of us eventually leave. A visual friendship because in reality, we know nothing about each other, but there’s a sort of harmony. An undiscussed agreement to keep this routine even though it would be much simpler to ignore the existence of the other. Yet every day I hurry to see her because in her eyes I catch a glimmer that shows me she’s just as lonely as me. That she seems to understand that were both sitting alone even though we're together. It makes me feel a little less lonely to be me. In a week my internship will be finished and I’ll go back to my old routine. Still, I can’t help but wonder if she’ll question why I’m gone if she’ll even miss me.
When it comes to the people around me in my internship, they each have their own unique qualities that I would want to further develop in myself. Starting off with Eulalia, I think one of her strongest qualities is that she doesn’t let stepbacks in the workplace keep her from pushing forward. I noticed she had some results in her experiment that she wasn’t hoping for but she didn’t let that stopped her and she continued her testing. Frank, another lab member, is really great at being thorough and organized. He always makes sure to have all his ingredients, supplies and instructions set up with him when he’s preparing to start a PCR. He also makes sure to clearly explain all the steps in the process and even uses analogies so I can better understand. Shannon is extremely dedicated to her work, even staying after hours to perform surgeries on mice and making calls to secure different ingredients for the lab. Paige has really good time management as she has to handle both working in the lab and college classes at the same time. Jennifer is mindful of the fact that a lot of what I’m learning is challenging so she does her best to offer help understanding any of the information on the reading packets we receive. Adriana really goes the extra mile, accompanying me and Ernesto to make sure we receive all of our identification and access cards. Last but not least Sasha, he’s had a lot of patience and understanding when it comes to me filling out paperwork and completing interviews and project discussions with him. All of the staff members each present their own unique qualities that I want to strive to develop in myself as they are all useful in creating an inviting and helpful future work environment. I am and will be for a while, a developing adolescent who still has so much more to learn from the world. The way I do that best is by observing the people around me and I’ve been so lucky to have the opportunity to work with such amazing people. Although none of what they work on is simple or easy, they all push through and keep trying their best because that essentially is their job. Testing out theories and failing over and over until you get it right. I can only admire their perseverance and do my best to follow in their footsteps so that I may hopefully one day be to a child what they are to me, an inspiration.
When walking into the laboratory the main thing that stood out to me was the calm and inviting atmosphere, which was actually the opposite of what I had been expecting. Unlike the overwhelming feeling of the color white everywhere around me and the dozens of delicate glass objects, the staff I am working with all had smiles on their faces and were very eager to know more about me and my internship partner, Ernesto. All of the staff was very open with me and did their best to make me feel comfortable. Although I refrained from asking questions, they actually encouraged us to ask questions because they were aware that the things they work on are very difficult to understand. Even though my age difference with some of the members ranges from 5 to over 15 years I’ve found that I have a lot of common interest with them such as entertainment, food, and hobbies. For example, I, Ernesto, and a coworker Eulalia all watch a show called Game of Thrones and we regularly discuss different theories we all have on the ending of the story. We also talk a lot about cultural differences between us since Eulalia is Indian and I’m Mexican. Whenever I’m working on reading packets in my free time, lab members come over and invite me to work with them or show me some new techniques. They have slowly stopped giving me as much assistance so that I get used to doing a procedure on my own. I appreciate how attentive they are of me and Ernesto so we feel welcome in the lab space. Also, I appreciate how they trust us and are open to answering any of our inquiries. My experience of the laboratory so far would have been completely different if it were not for the caring lab members.
I think that Rob Riordan is saying in his quote about the internship is that the point of an internship is not to confirm your career interest or figure out what you want to do with your life. I think he means to say that through internship you can use the opportunity to experience a professional working environment and reflect on your learning. To dive deeper and analyze your work ethics and moral insights. My internship site, Kauffman Lab at UCSD’s vision/goal follows as stated on their website, “Our goal is to better understand the hormonal and neural mechanisms underlying reproduction in order to improve fertility treatments in humans, elucidate novel contraceptive methods, and enhance treatment of pubertal and developmental disorders.” I think that serving others develops my sense of self by increasing my sense of relatedness. By being more social and participating in social interactions and activities I can improve my sense of person to person and group collaboration. I can also practice mutual understanding with others. I know that there’s research behind the fact that serving our community and other’s can cause positive brain health effects such as boosting moods and giving ourselves a sense of meaning and purpose. A skill that I can use to contribute to my internship site’s goals is my class experience with dissection and use of scientific equipment. I practiced some safety procedures and worked through dissecting a fetal pig. I think this would be useful as the last time I visited Kauffman labs they spoke to us about how they dissect mice brains and we even got the opportunity to use some of their equipment. Working through projects and engaging in self-reflection is a large part of our community that has helped me to discover and distinguish my hard and soft skills. From freshman to junior year a hard skill that I have been honing is working with software programs. I have learned to navigate my way around most of the Google programs such as Google classroom, drawings, slides, documents, drive, sheets, calendar, sites, and forms. Since my first year of high school, I have also had lots of experience with a software program called Inkscape. It’s similar to Adobe Illustrator but we use it to create files for laser cutting. Each year I have found some way to incorporate my knowledge of Inkscape in order to add more creative options to our projects such as the art piece I laser cut which was exhibited yesterday at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and a wheel showcasing different quotes from senior citizens for the Faces of Change project back in sophomore year. A soft skill that I have learned since coming to High Tech is integrity. The driving moment for this skill was during a movie project in freshman year. I found it challenging to stay focused on one task and I decided to create something that looks like a hydroponics system rather than actually creating one because it was easier. Due to this, our group didn’t have a finished gardening system to present at the end of the year. It took me some time to own up to my mistake and reflect on my choice of taking the easy way instead of the hard way but eventually, I talked to my teacher about it. A skill that I feel is one of my strengths is perseverance because even though meeting project deadlines is difficult I always put all of my attention towards finishing our work even if I have to sacrifice my sleep and social activities in order to get it done. Many times I have felt like giving up, but I always remember how there are other people who are counting on me and are expecting good work from me so I keep going. A skill that I think I’ll be able to apply to the adult environment is active listening because I’ll be in an environment I’m not comfortable with so I’ll need to make sure that I understand the information that is being given to me.
I haven’t given much thought to what I want to do for the rest of my life but there are definitely some things I want to achieve. In the future is that I want to go to a UC college. Once I graduate I would want to continue going to school in the side and eventually earn a Ph.D. I’ve considered working in a lab but I’m not sure if the environment will be right for me as I like to move around a lot. I would like to work in a natural science related field, hopefully working with plants more specifically. I’m not sure if it’s the main job I want to pursue but I think it would be nice to work in a botanical garden or an arboretum as I’ve always envisioned myself working there. Besides that one of my main motivations in life is making money that way my parents can live an easier life and be able to do the things they missed out on as they had to take care of their children from a very young age. Being able to financially provide and contribute to my family is one of my main goals for the future. I want them to live a secure life. Some areas of my life that I feel I need to work on in my life is self-care. I tend to sacrifice sleep often in order to work or I stay up using electronics. I’ve been working on it but I feel there’s room for me to improve in my eating habits and trying to cut out carbs. Heading into my internship I feel excited to get to work in an environment outside of school, but I also feel a little nervous that I might not perform well.
I believe reducing brain health stigma is very challenging as a large amount of the world’s population has come to this consensus that brain health is something that shouldn’t be talked openly about. Since it’s not a common topic of conversation I think that we as teens should strive towards educating others on brain health and speaking about it openly with family members, friends, and strangers to create a calm environment with no judgement so others can speak up. I think that a big part of the stigma is following along and believing what others tell you about mental health. We should encourage others to research more on the topic so they get a clear and unbiased understanding. By learning more about the brain I’ve also learned more about myself. I’ve learned how some of the habits I have for example staying up late can impact my brain health negatively. Throughout this project I have learned about ways to take care of myself but also spotting signs of poor brain health in my peers too. I believe that the data that neuroscience producing can and should be used by adults, but society isn’t doing their part. There’s plenty of information out there showing the benefits and repercussions of certain actions on the teen brain but the people who have to ability to use it for good social change don’t always do anything with it.
Today was a bit of a challenging day for me in my core classes. I found myself wanting to reject the critique I had gotten on my brain health paper in humanities. It is a persuasive essay about how school start times should be delayed so that teens will struggle less with insufficient sleep. Although I knew that this person was just trying to help, I had some very negative and closed off emotions towards refining my work. Thinking about it I really just didn't want to do more work, more refinement. I’ve been struggling with this a lot lately, giving up more often, putting in less effort. The same thing happened in Biology. We were given a paper and we had to create a mind map on our topic that includes: neurotransmitters, basic needs, emotional needs, hormones, macromolecules, etc. All I ended up doing was staring at my paper and wasting time. We were even given ten minutes to come up with a connection from our topic to an article we read on brain plasticity and I ended up coming up with mine at the last minute. I didn’t matter though because even though it wasn’t a bad connection it didn’t go over what we were supposed to make a connection about. The connection being, “the article talks about how the hippocampus experiences a temporary disruption during pubertal onset. I know that the hippocampus is responsible for storing memory and it mainly functions at night. I connected this to sleep-phase delay and how this occurs during pubertal onset so the change in drowsiness times could cause sleep deprivation. Then sleep deprivation could be connected to less time for the hippocampus to work making it harder for teens to learn and retain information when at school.” After being told to go back and look for more information, I did some research and came up with a new connection. During sleep, the brain uses cerebral spinal fluid to flush out any toxins and get rid of any unnecessary connections made throughout the brain and in turn strengthens the necessary ones so that your brain has more capability to learn when you wake up the next morning. If you don’t get enough sleep you don’t give enough time for your brain to clear the unnecessary connections and it makes it harder for you to retain information and learn, thus affecting your brain plasticity. This was really the highlight of my brain, I didn’t realize how little I actually understood about my topic so making this new connection felt great for me.
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About the AuthorBringing the inside scoop to what's going on inside the head of an 11th grader trying to organize a piece of her life, through this blog giving you the details of the Nuvia/Hood-Esparza team at High Tech High Chula Vista. Archives
June 2019
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