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.
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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.
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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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