This experience has taught me a lot. I now know that I would love to work in a lab in the future. I’m not exactly sure if I will work in a lab like this or maybe something a little bit different. Although this has been an amazing internship I think I would also like to experience different things in a lab. This could be more environmentally based or maybe even marine based. Either way I think working in a lab would defiantly be somewhere I could see myself working in the future. Going into college I definitely want to continue to work in lab whether that is in the classroom or for an internship. Past college I don’t think I really want to work at a college and have to teach but I would like to do research projects maybe through a different type of institution. This internship has been an eye opener for what my future could hold and also has helped me gain insight into what the “real world” is like.
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I am measuring my success as an intern by if the cells I am culturing are dying or not. I can tell I have had a lot of success because when I first started here I had some of my cells die. This was pretty frustrating because I didn’t want them to die. It turns out they were dying because of somethings that were out of my control, such as not having filter tops on our flasks and using a communal incubator. Form this I have learned that sometimes lab work can be frustrating but you just have to keep working and you’ll figure out the problems you may have been facing in the past. My meaningful contribution to my workplace is going to be a list of things that new people coming into the lab would need to know. I think this will be really helpful because this is a very new environment for many people and there are somethings that took me a while to figure out that would've been really nice to know when I started. This internship has been very meaningful to my education. I am learning how to do sterile technique, this is very meaningful because many students don’t learn this until college. I am getting lab experience before most students and this could potentially help me a lot in the future.
I have a new appreciation for finding things to work on and reading literature reviews. This internship has given me a lot of downtime so I always need to find productive things to do. I usually work on reading the lit review my mentor gave me to read. This paper has proved very challenging for me to read mostly because the language used is very high level. I am currently still working on this paper. The main characteristic I want to develop in myself come from Courtney, One of my colleges, She always knows what is going on and what to do about it. This is her job but she is really good at it. I would like to develop this in myself because I often know what is going on in the short term but if I could develop this in a big picture aspect I think I would be much more organized. This internship has shown me I really enjoy lab work. I think now I know that working a lab is definitely a path I would like to follow in the future. I’m not completely sure what kind of lab I would like to work in but this has shown me it is something I would like to follow. During this internship, I advocate for myself by always asking questions when I need to understand things better. I have found that even though my Biology Honors has helped me a lot I still don't know the majority of the content I am working with. This has caused me to break out of my shell and ask when I need to know something. Also, I have been given readings that will help me further understand what we are doing in the lab. I have seen advocacy demonstrated in a lot of situations on campus. This is mostly because if you need something done you have to push for it to get done. I have seen this mostly in through communications with the people I am working with. The 5 pieces of advice in "How to be an intern everyone remembers" are, always be doing something, don’t go to a meeting without a notebook, get to know all your colleagues EARLY, show up on time or early, and dress more professionally than the people you are working with. I think I do all of these things very well. I do have some down time here so I make sure I am reading up on what we are working on. Finally, I think it is very important to communicate with my mentors, I have done a very good job with this. I tend to be a little shy in new situations but I think I have done a very good job reaching out with I need help and keeping contact even when my mentor isn't on campus.
My internship is a little different, I don't have a specific project so I am going to write about what I have been working on in the lab and what I plan to work on in the future. So far the lab is in a bit of a transition period. For me, this means I am helping move the lab supplies and make sure we know where everything is. I think this is good for me to be doing because I get to learn where everything is and what it does. Today, I worked on making cell media and also thawing cells so we could look at them under a microscope. Moving forward I am going to learn how to freeze cells so they can be stored again. In order to keep working in the lab in a helpful manner, I need a few skills. First, I need to be organized. This means I need to be able to know where everything is and what it is used for. Second, I need to be a critical thinker. I need to be able to reason my way through questions without knowing the whole answer. Finally, I need to be good at communicating. This means I am regularly in contact with my mentor and also that I am asking questions when I need help. The main place I need support from is everyone I am working with. I just need them to be helpful when I don’t know exactly what to do. So, far this has not been a problem everyone is very helpful and welcoming.
Mentor InterviewMy mentors job title is Professor of Biological Sciences. Right now my mentor keeps good relationships with colleagues. She used to work in administration but has moved away from that. At this moment she is working on setting up lab and writing grants for her stem cell project. I am assisting in setting up the lab. For projects such as this she hopes to get around 50,000-100,000 dollars a year. My mentor first started working at University of Wisconsin, Madison doing HIV research. There were 35 people along with 4 graduate students working in this lab. She was the only female grad student. Her professor had only trained one women before. There was no discussion of cultural validation. She is originally from Brazil and is a women in STEM. Then she worked at a company. Finally she interviewed at CSUSM and was very excited to be able to work with underprivileged students who lacked representation. She found that being a women in STEM she had to take on any opportunity that would allow her to have a voice. She got invited to have a seat at comity because of gender and ethnicity. She was a little hesitant for this at first but, she realized this opportunity would give her a place to have a voice. She learned that she has advocate even when it's uncomfortable. She found that further you go there are less women in STEM and it becomes more apparent that you need to take opportunities when they arise. My mentor acquired some of her skills she uses now through theory, but the majority of her skills came from actually doing her work. She also found that she learned the most by failing but if she kept working through those failures that she would learn a lot more. She really enjoys coming to work, especially now that she has found her place on campus. My mentors typical days can range a lot but this is what a typical day might look like. She gets to work between 8-8:30 responds to any urgent emails. Then she makes list of things she needs to get done for the day. She interacts with her colleagues in the lab and office. Now, since she has moved away from administration she gets to spend time thinking. She also has to go to meetings but she has more control over what they are about now. Finally she ends her day around 4- 4:30 by answering more emails. This is a traditional academic institution, There is a President who is now a women. Since we are working on the academic side there is a provost. This is a senior administrative officer and everything has to go through them. The oversee 5-6 colleges. Then, there are deans of each college, structures under each college(i.e. chemistry, biology, psychology) Department chair, faculty, and staff. To be successful in this workplace it takes a thick skin you need to pick the right fights forget about unimportant things because they don’t matter. You can’t have a big ego and you need to be able to take critique. You have to take pride in your Ah Ha moments when working with students or getting some insight into new things that no one else knows. It's very important to maintain relationships you have. Also, it helps to have a few key relationships that may help you work out problems. These relationships are more important than you think especially when you need favors done. To work in this career it is important to have the right knowledge in your content area. This helps you be able to teach the classed in your content area. You have to be willing to work as part of a team. Also, you have to be accountable for the things you start and keep following up with those things. Internship ReflectionI don’t really have any questions about my internship, so far I have really enjoyed being here and it's been a super good experience. The biggest connection I can make between internship and school is to Biology Honors. For my Biology Honors project, I annotated the whole Biology SAT book and I did not really expect to be able to apply a lot of what I did in it to anything other than the SAT. So far I am so thankful I did that as my project because I am able to understand a lot of what the people I am working with are talking about. This was something I was a little afraid of, not being able to understand that people were discussing, but since I did the Biology book I have a pretty good grasp of what is being discussed. I have learned a lot about the STEM cell project in the three days I have been here. Also, I have learned that the research that they are doing could make a huge difference in personalized medicine. The main skills I need to develop will be taught to me during internship. This consist of learning how to sanitarily culture cells and thawing and freezing cells. As far as getting to internship I drive myself every day. This is not much different than driving to school since my internship site is very close to school. The only issue I have had so far is getting a parking permit. I went to police station to get one on the 16th but that said that I can’t have it until the 21st. Hopefully, we get that resolved soon because parking on college campuses is expensive. Update: I got my parking permit.
The main thing that strikes me most about my workplace is that I get to have a lot of freedom. This is a great opportunity for me because I am getting a really good real work experience. The freedom I get here is not complete freedom I have tasks I have to do and I get the freedom to work on them relatively independently. I think this is important because in the “real world” I will not always have teachers holding my hand. So the opportunities I have here are really important to take advantage of. Also, I am going to be learning a lot while I’m here and that will hopefully help me find the job path or college major I would like to follow. Everyone work with is very helpful and willing to work with me if needed. Also, the people I work with have good relationships with one another. This is a super positive environment and because of that everyone here accepts me and makes sure I have things to work on. I am glad that the people I work with don’t treat me like I don’t know what I am doing, and are always willing to teach me how to do things I need to be able to. It surprises me that I am going to be able to work on so many of the projects that are going on here. I am going to be taught how to properly culture cells so I can hopefully work with STEM cell. Since Dr. Mothé is moving labs right now I have not directly gotten to work with cells yet but in the coming week, I will be learning protocols so once the lab is ready I can work with cells. I am extremely excited to be able to work with cells since I have never gotten that opportunity before. Also, one of the students (Max) was explaining his project to me and I am excited to hear more about that. The only thing I am a little worried about is killing cells. Max told me that sometimes it hard to keep cells alive and I don't want to kill any. Overall, I am extremely excited to continue working in the lab and learning new things.
A typical day at work at this site can range depending on what is happening on that day. One day you could spend a lot of the day working on culturing cells and other lab work. On another day you could be answering emails and going to meetings all day. Also, you could be reading literature and writing lit reviews.
The business's work policies at CSUSM are not super strict to where your going to get in trouble for being late or not coming into work on a given day. However, you are expected to show up when you need to be on campus but, sometimes you can work from home. This also depends if you are teaching a class or not, if you are teaching a class it is a given that you show up to teach when that class is scheduled. There is not a set dress code at the site I am working at but if I had to describe the attire people wear I would say describe it as casual. Most people wear jeans and a t-shirt or sweater. To me, this means that people need to be conferable while working in this environment and you need to easily be able to move around. My career day experience was pretty relaxed. I went in later in the day and worked with my mentor's office manager to fill out my final volunteer paperwork. We also had a conference call with my mentor Then we toured the labs and worked out some things with the new lab they will be moving into. The professional world at my internship is relatively independent. I will be expected to be able to do lots of things without someone holding my hand along the way. Also, I will be working with a bunch of different people in the lab so I will be expected to commutate with them. The skills that I have learned in biology that I can use in this job is just my relative knowledge about cells. A lot of this has come from my honors project. In humanities, I have learned how to analyze texts, this will help me a lot when doing readings about STEM cells. In math, I have learned how to keep my work organized this will help me to keep my workspace organized especially when working in different labs at the same time. |