12 Jul Anna Countryman | BNI | Week 5

Running correlations for my speaker notes

The day is here: my last blog. First of all, thank you to everyone who followed along! It was an excellent journey of growth and learning. Secondly, go check out the other pintern blogs – after reading this, of course – because they all worked/are working very hard and doing some super cool projects! Now, let’s get into my final week at the Stokes Lab at Barrow Neurological Institute. Our last seminar was presented by the Head of Neurology, Dr. Racette. He, like the other speakers, went into detail on his path to where he is today. His main focus in his career thus far has been how environmental factors can influence the development of Parkinson’s disease, particularly in welders and miners. He also touched on the importance of publicity and funding to research, which was a perspective we hadn’t heard much about from other speakers. Throughout this internship, I clocked an amazing 145 in-office hours. Every minute was spent improving or learning something. I built connections with those in my lab and some of my fellow interns, all of whom added value to my experience. I’m very grateful to everyone who took time to work with me. Shout out especially to Dr. Stokes, for her guidance; Hannah, for all her time spent teaching me to code and organize my ideas; and Molly, for extracting and organizing all of the data I needed before starting! 

My poster! (I’m very proud of it)

Since I had to be technically done with my project last week in order to turn in my poster on Monday, this week was mainly spent preparing for Thursday’s Symposium. Monday morning, I met with my mentor to make any last-minute changes to my research poster, editing the textual format and overall layout. It’s so satisfying to see it finished and I felt a major sense of accomplishment. I spent the rest of Monday and most of Tuesday creating and refining speaker notes to review before my presentation. These included different definitions and more in-depth descriptions of the correlational data I found. We were assigned to prepare a 3-minute elevator pitch for our posters, so I figured it would be helpful to layout those pieces, which also prepared me to answer all questions thoroughly and accurately. I also did some other correlations between test scores and behavioral data just to have in mind for questions, not to add to the poster. I was able to complete most of these completely on my own, which shows how far I’ve come in just the past couple of weeks. I’m excited to share more specifics about my research at the Pinhead Presentation Night in September. Wednesday, I attended a meeting where I got to hear the PHD students give poster presentations similar to what I did Thursday. It was very helpful to have a preview of what to address specifically and how lengthy it should be. I used this information to refine my speaker notes.

Presenting at the Symposium

The symposium went great! I was able to present to so many different individuals in a wide variety of careers. Learning about each intern’s project gave me even more insight on how many different careers and projects contribute to neuroscience and hospitals. I made connections with very knowledgeable individuals, some of whom want to stay in contact to help me through my admissions process next school year. Along with this, I also found out Friday that the ALS Network wants to interview me about my summer to share on their social media and in an article! I’m very excited to share this experience and hopefully stay connected to the network to contribute to in the future. 

Thursday Night Sunset!

My mom flew into town Tuesday to see my symposium and drive home with me. That afternoon and evening, we went to a nearby mall – mostly window shopping – and got Mediterranean food for dinner before I headed back to my house to pack and clean a bit. Then Wednesday, we went to her hotel pool and got a quick dinner before finding a coupon and buying tickets to see Dear Evan Hansen, a Broadway show, performed by the Phoenix Theatre Company. The actors were absolutely amazing. If someone had told me it was a Broadway cast, I could’ve believed it. Thursday, after my symposium, I finished packing and cleaning up my host house. Later, we went to the Desert Botanical Garden to take some make-shift senior photos. Everything went smoothly when we drove back to Colorado on Saturday.

Certificate of completion!

I just wanted to share some last-minute gratitude. I’m extremely grateful for everything I’ve learned this summer, from science to what I’m looking for in a career to life in the city. I’m excited for any opportunity to continue on this path and journey. Thank you, Pinhead, for creating such an amazing chance to experience the professional world, coming from rural Colorado.  Thank you again to Barrow Neurological Institute and all of the people in Phoenix who helped me to feel comfortable and learn. Sending a special thanks to my Host family as well; I couldn’t have done it without them. Thank you to my family in Colorado for all of their support throughout this process as well. And lastly, thank you for following along!