July 23rd, 2016
This week I finished up my data processing and finalized the figures for my poster and oral presentation, put together the rough draft of my project poster, and had a phone interview with science writer from CU Boulder to talk about my experience at RECCS. At the communication workshop, I participated in a discussion led by Lesley about setting goals and making plans for the future.
The biggest challenge I had this week was definitely meeting the deadline for my poster rough draft while I was still in the midst of data processing. I had some major inhibitions that were preventing me from getting it done earlier in the week: trying to determine which components of the project I wanted to discuss, how to best represent the data I had visually in figures, and having a lot in my R scripts to edit to make sure my figures were correct. I had a lot of late nights this week! Thankfully, I pulled through and managed to get it done.
Currently, I don’t feel well prepared for my presentations. I know if I had to present right this second that I’d have plenty to talk about, but I haven’t had a chance to really figure out the flow of my presentation yet. That is what this weekend is for! I plan on putting my PowerPoint together and practicing my talk. I feel confident that by Friday of next week I will feel very prepared. I have a mock presentation on Monday morning for the research team at the Fierer Lab and another one on Wednesday during the workshop. I shouldn’t have to go into the lab much next week either, so I should have a lot of time to practice before Friday comes.
Noah gave me a good piece of advice this week about preparing a talk. He said that I should really determine the “story” that I want to tell which will be complemented by the data I’ve obtained – not to approach it in reverse. I was getting caught up in analyzing the data and thinking about what I could talk about based off of what I was seeing, instead of focusing in on one or two topics and seeing how the data fits into those topics. It’s a subtle difference, but it definitely has helped me narrow down the most important points.
It is such a bittersweet feeling for me that next week is the last week of this program. It accelerated quite dramatically and the end seemed so far away initially. I’m so grateful for everything that I’ve learned in this program and it has solidified my goal of becoming a research scientist! I look forward to my future and so much credit is due to the amazing people who have helped me along the way these past 8 weeks!
Next major life event: presenting the findings of my first research project!
I’m back to feeling excited and nervous again!
I’m looking forward to seeing and hearing all about the fruits of your labors over the past 8 weeks at the poster session and presentation. You’ve definitely worked extremely hard and it’s sure to pay off for you!
Scott-Wesley, you did such a great job of explaining your research design and protocols. You took something that was quite complicated and made it so simple for all of us to understand. Great job!