Week 8! Final Week!

Learned:

The biggest thing I learned this week is that things will work out. A lot was happening with the end of the program and the presentation. In the end, we all had a good presentation and sounded knowledgeable and confident

I also learned about the effectiveness of presentation feedback. Throughout this week and last, I have learned how to make a presentation succeed. Nathan offered a lot of helpful feedback to all in the cohort. As we went on, I saw more and more improvement based on such feedback.

Finally, this week I learned how to upload my map to my website. This was a multiple-step process with three different people helping me achieve such a task. Hayden thankfully was able to coach me on how to put it on, get up, and create a repository

Challenges:

My biggest challenge this week was the anticipation of our upcoming presentations. Working on our presentation proved to be a time-consuming task that not only took time but also took up my brain space. Going into the week, I had very little confidence in my presentation, but by the time we had to do it officially, I think it went well.

Another challenge I had this week was that I was trying to balance finishing out my research strong with spending time with the fellow members of my cohort. Through this program, we have all grown close together and learned a lot from the advice and knowledge that they had to share.

My final challenge this week was that I got rejected from an internship at the Smithsonian. This really impacted me for the evening I found out. Although rejection is a part of life, following my interview a couple of weeks ago, I felt confident in my ability to get this job and was disappointed when I did not get the position.

Achievements:

My biggest accomplishment this week was that I successfully gave my presentation and completed this undergraduate research experience. I feel good about the work I did and the presentation that I gave. It was a lot of hard work and practice, but it turned out good and I am proud of my work.

In addition, I have finished my website and uploaded my final blog post. The blog post offered a good opportunity to reflect on my work each week and talk about how I have struggled and succeeded. In a week or so, I will be looking forward to re-reading all my posts and reflecting on the experience.

Finally, an accomplishment (while minor) I had was that I made it to the debrief/lecture on time at 8 am on Friday. Thursday night, as it was our last night, we all stayed up late into the night hanging out and playing games. Although it was a very fun time, we stayed up until the wee hours of the night, and the alarm came early.