This internship has done more for me that I have for the internship. I have learned so much in the past month that made me very excited to learn and to work with my hands. I absolutely loved doing my internship here and it has been a great experience for me. I think that I have showed who I am as a hardworking person and made sure to do things as carefully and thoughtfully as possible. I have made sure to show up and be present in what I am doing and make sure that I put the best effort in it even if it was something as simple as reading and annotating an article. I wanted to make sure that I was understanding it and taking everything in. At first it was really hard but by the end of the internship I understood most of the article and could get through them pretty quickly. I would try my best to get the most out of it and push myself to ask questions. Being in a lab with no one my age was a little intimidating but I was able to be myself and get my work done because I was treated as more of one of them than someone just visiting. I was able to help a lot more than I thought I would down in the vivarium. Since I wasn’t able to touch the live mice I was still able to help by writing things on the sorting cards and test tubes while learning things that they were doing. In the lab I was also able to help run PCRs and Gels (not by myself). I think that even though most of the time I was shadowing people, when I was allowed to do things on my own it was really an opportunity for me to show that I did understand and could do it. I have made an impact by just helping whenever someone needs help and continuing to help different people do different things while learning at the same time. I have been working really hard to make sure that this internship can be something that continues to go on for years to come. This is something that has more of an impact on you then you do on it because of all the content that they provide while providing an fun environment to work in at the same time. This last week I have been counting slides from the in situ that we ran two weeks ago.
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As most of you may know there has been a video taking the internet by storm. It is a recording of a website saying laurel but due to the background noise and pitch, some people may hear the word Yanny instead. The day that this came out I heard laurel and I still have no idea how someone would hear yanny. On our way here Sam and I both heard Laurel and were saying that there was no way that someone can hear yanny. This was the topic up for debate for the whole day. Three of us heard laurel and the other two heard yanny. We were all gathered around a computer and everytime the video said the word we would all say what we thought. We were being louder than usual and we were all laughing. We would stop people from other labs come to our bay and say what they heard too. They all thought that we were crazy for doing this but we were just trying to figure out who was right. Most of the things being said to one another was you’re crazy how do you hear yanny/laurel. After having a debate we looked up what was the real thing being said and it was Laurel, but the people that heard yanny still didn’t believe us. We even found a audio clip that would change it from yanny to laurel and back to yanny so that everyone can hear all parts of the audio. But we did this all while making solutions for the in Situ and and during the washes of the in Situ. This was an event that showed how fun and open this environment is. I think that the playfulness and hardworking mix is something that I can definitely get behind of. I think that my experience here has been nothing but positive vibes and good laughs at everything. Even the things that they have in their bays show the kind of personalities that they have, in some there are hoola hoops, a thor cardboard cut out, a basketball hoop, and even funny sticky notes. I am this way too, I know how to get my work done while talking or joking around and it makes everything go by faster and seem like you’re not really working. I have found that really helpful here at my internship because it can be really intimidating to come in here and not really know what they are doing but having their personalities come through and teach me like how they are makes me love coming here everyday.
I think the biggest thing that strikes me about this workplace is how cool everyone is. There is constant laughing and conversations going on about everything. I think that I do feel very welcomed and comfortable here because of the people and the way that they act. They have dropped a lot of knowledge on me but don’t expect me to memorize everything. This lab is very open and no one is really closed off or left out of things. A way that they start their monday’s which I think is really cool is they get together and go over everything that they did the week before and all of the things that they plan on doing for the upcoming week. This is a great way to set your goals and make sure that you reach them because you have people witnessing what you are saying. It also gets you really excited for what everyone is working on and make sure that you have an idea of what is going on in the lab. I have basically my own bay. Bay EE. No one really works in here so I am usually in my own space but sometimes I do have people that work in there too but I have my own desk so it's okay. I think that getting used to my little routine of coming in and just getting out something and working on that before someone invites me to help them really helps with the work that I’m doing and has been really easy to adjust to. One problem I encounter a lot is not having access to the lab without someone opening it for me. I am in the lab for basically the whole day unless we go to the verbarium so when I have to use the restroom or something when I come back I have to wait until someone opens the door for me. But they are usually very nice about it and that isn’t usually a problem it's just very awkward. Since the first day I have really learned a lot. I was given 3 readings with a lot of concepts that I don’t fully understand but the point of these articles are for me to get exposed to the words and then be able to talk to the people that are here and get better exposed. I think that this place is a very good fit for me because they have fun while they are doing great things and that is the kind of person that I am. I think a skill that already use all the time is my communication skills because we have been doing that all year long in preparations for it. A place where I use it a lot is at Sharp where I volunteer, we have to let our supervisor know if anything happens when we are with the patients and if we aren’t going to be there. This is something that is a big deal in any workplace so I think that this skill will be something that is constantly in use no matter what is going on what I am doing. I think something that goes under this skill is that I am not afraid to ask questions and that I am just a naturally curious person. An example of this is when I am in class and I have no idea what is going on I will ask my peers before I ask the teacher just because It is easier for everyone that way. Some skills that I want to work on are critical thinking and how it I analyze different things. I think that this something that I will definitely be able to work on during my internship because there is going to be a lot of different things going on in the lab and I am going to need to think about things harder and make sure that I understand what is going on. I’ll also need to learn how to analyze things more closely because I am working in a lab and that is a big part of the job description. I will be working closely with someone in the lab on their project and hopefully I will be a big help to them in what they are working on. I think my skills can help with my internship project by communicating and asking for help or critique on the project to make sure that it is as perfect as it can be. I want my project to be something that makes people think and actually teaches them something about what I did and maybe even spark something for them to what to do that as well. With my analytical skills that I am going to improve there I can use them to analyze the things that I have learned and make sure that that is going into my internship project and working closely with that. My dream internship project is to have something to show the progress from start to finish with my internship and make it something that people can follow and understand. In the future I have a lot of big goals, most of them are leading toward my career choice in life. Many of which have been set by myself but there are a handful that have been set by my mother. I have known that I wanted to be a doctor for some time now (because of my mother who has been pushing me to become one because she never had the chance to) and it has taken prominence in my interests and the things that I choose to learn about. I want to be a doctor because I love the idea of helping people and what I’ll learn. My big dream right now is to get accepted and attend UCSD. I think that UCSD would be the best fit for me because of the close proximity to home, and also to the beach. These are important to me because my family is a big part of who I am and the beach is the place that I go to when I need to clear my mind and meditate. My bigger dream is to get into med school and become a pediatrician because it combines two things that I am very passionate about. I want to be someone caring, patient and always willing to help whoever needs it. I think all of these are areas of improvement but I practice them already when I volunteer at the hospital. I think my procrastination is the biggest thing that I can work on and I have already seen myself growing in this area this year. I have seen myself start to do assignments when they are assigned and not the night before it is due. Of course it's not perfect or where I want it to be. I am so excited to get to my internship at the Kauffman Lab yet also very nervous to be there. I think that this will be such a great experience for me especially since I am looking into this as a possible career option. How often do you hear a high school student working in a lab for college students to work in. . This picture was taken at the Longhorns vs. Toreros game and I was very excited to see my favorite players and inspirations. I think this is me right now because I am very excited but I am also amazed at how great this opportunity is for me Last week I was part of the design challenge so I got to meet a lot of really cool zine artists and become relatively close with an awesome zine artist. During this my group asked my zine artist a lot of questions about her life and how she became to be a zine artist. But the story that we thought was the most interesting was that she said she had a last minute zine fest in a garage so we decided to incorporate that into the prototypes that we did because we thought the story was so funny. After listening to that and trying to complete the different tasks that we had to do it became very stressful to try to make the different things that we didn't really know what things that we had to do. I felt like there wasn’t much instruction as to what we were doing but it was a good experience to see what we could come up with and how we could have made it better in the end. We had a really good group so even though we didn’t really know what we were doing we still could make the best out of the experience and create a table space that anyone at the zine fest could use. We tried to make it personal because we figured that that is a big part of the zine culture because they are super personal and they give something that they believe in.
At this school we know that a lot of people have a lot of different people but seeing all of the strong empowering women walk out to stand up for something that we all are passionate about. I had the wonderful opportunity of standing up there with all of the women in my life that have made a difference someway or somehow. Standing up there and listening to all of the stories made me feel a certain way and seeing how that affected the other women in my life moved me more than if I had just read the pieces on my own. I loved the fact that male teachers went up there as well to show all the young men at our school what a feminist looks likes. I think that I didn’t really think that deep into why I was chosen to go up there with mrs Hood-Esparza, But once I talked to my advisor about it she made me realize that there was more than just being chosen. I was chosen because I am a strong young women that has been called those names but I have also proven that I am much more than that and I have a lot of courage to do that in front of people that have called me those names. And to be able to say it with confidence is something that doesn’t come easy for most but I felt the energy from the people around me and that is the reason that I got so much more out of that. The message that the poem sent was a lot more than the words that were said. I thought that I felt more empowered by the meaning that I got from it. I related so much to what was said in the poem that it was written for me or for women like me. This is just another reason that I love high tech and how it empowers their students to do thing like this and stand up for what they believe in.
I had so much fun on this trip. But I feel like it went by really fast because I had no sleep any of the nights there. It started out with me trying to sleep on the bus ride up there but not being able to find any comfortable positions due to the length of my legs. To make a long and winey story short, I didn’t sleep the first night. The second night I slept like a baby after walking around all day and hanging out in the hotel rooms I knocked out. But on the bus ride home I was so comfortable but couldn’t seem to fall asleep. I think it was because I knew that I was going to be home soon and would be in the comfort of my own bed. As for the actual colleges I don't think that I would find myself at any of them but thought that Santa Cruz would be the best fit for me based on the area and the school itself was just beautiful. I think that I need a school that is in close proximity to the beach and has good weather. My social needs would be met because they said that you are grouped with people who have similar interests with and they also said that they were in a lower division of volleyball which would be perfect for me because I have been thinking about playing in college and this school would be able to offer that to me. The only thing that would be missing would be my family because I am very close with them and that would be a hard thing to let go of! This week I we did a lot of going through our work together things for our socratic seminar. I thought that this was a big thing to do because there were so many articles that we had done throughout the year that could have helped us with this socratic seminar. I think that the group that I went with was a quitter group and you can tell who the people that are outgoing and who the ones that were more quiet because of who was dominating the conversation. I feel like we could have had a better conversation if we were to have had opposing views on the topic. Feel like we had an alright conversation and we definitely saw the boys side and the girls side of how we feel for people but there aren't very many key points that we discussed. I took away that boys don’t tend to feel for the person but they are more likely to comfort them and then not really care as much as the girls that we actually feel a similar pain when someone we care about is feeling a certain way. Being one of the females in the group that talked about that it made me think about how my views on a certain situation is a tad different than other girls but it is drastically different than the boys. I think that in the end we all do value empathy but don't always apply it in ways that people see it the same.
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Cayla MaltmanI am an 11th grade student. Here I will be reflecting weekly to see my progress as a student this semester. Archives
May 2018
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