I chose “With a Little Help from my Friends” because it lightheartedly portrays my struggles this summer and how I made it through. Lines like “How do I feel by the end of the day?/Are you sad because you’re on your own?” reflect my frustrations at times with being so independent with my project. But, I did get by with help from others. My mentors Dr. Carter and Janelle guided me through the design of the study and expectations of the psych field, while my beloved CSCAR (the University of Michigan’s Consulting for Statistics, Computing, and Analytics Research) got me through the nitty gritty of the actual coding and analysis. There’s no way in hell this project would’ve gotten completed (let alone started) without all their help.
But I feel like a bunch of songs could’ve gotten this same message across. I especially liked this one because of its lighthearted nature. The way I tend to handle things is to laugh about them. Obviously I wasn’t “getting high” with the CSCAR consultants, but I thought the playful spirit of the song reflected my own attitude towards my project this summer, which consisted mostly of me laughing when I said I never really knew what I’m doing but I just kept chugging along.