This semester, I plan to work on expanding my professional and networking skills. Most importantly, I want to experience first-hand, whether or not the research field is right for me. So far, I’ve learned a lot about glaucoma and how to create a visual stimuli using a software called VPixx. Glaucoma is a disease that damages the eye’s optic nerves and can result in vision loss and blindness; Dr. Lyne and I are more focused on primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG). For our research, we’re hoping to find a noninvasive way to detect POAG earlier in patients by testing Visual Attention & Higher-Order Motions. 

Before my internship, I never actually thought much about all the time and efforts that researchers put into their projects. However, after the amount of details and preparations we have already invested in these last few months, I desperately want to learn how to properly set up and carry out my own research. In addition, the proper ways of attaining & reporting scientific findings. During this internship, I expect that my organizing and management skills will improve. The most challenging part of my experience thus far, is staying focused & dedicated to one specific project at a time. This is a challenge for me because I’m used to multi-tasking and quickly moving on to a new subject whenever it sparks my curiosity. Nonetheless, the LHSI program will slowly mold me into the more professional individual I want to become.

Although my internship doesn’t fit into any of the courses I’m taking at the moment, it has however given me the opportunity to explore other possible career paths; while still maintaining the one I’m currently pursuing (Engineering). On the other hand, the devices and machines we work with in our lab, has further encouraged me that engineering may be the correct field for me. Not only that, but I've also incorporated a few of the lessons I learned in my calculus and multidimensional courses at my internship. So although LHSI doesn’t directly correlate to my in-class education this semester, it has motivated me to focus even more on my studies… Who would have guessed that after all those years of tiresomely asking our instructors, “Why do we even need to learn this stuff?!” would finally be answered?

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Seattle, WA

Baltimore, MD

The Midwest/Great Lakes Undergraduate Research Symposium in Neuroscience (Ohio State University-2016)