As I sat down to write this blog, I realized that 3 weeks from today I’ll be presenting my research at symposium, and it truly feels like we just started! While my experience has been fast-paced, my research lab team has made great use of the time in terms of what I’ve been able to participate in and contribute to. Overall, my main task has been working on my independent research project for the symposium. With the assistance of my mentor and project manager, I’ve created a research question about sexual minority youth and binge drinking which I’ve been exploring using a dataset from an intervention this lab has carried out recently.
Something I’ve realized through this process is how much jargon and superfluous elements of the research experience have the potential to act as barriers for incoming students. Some of the tasks I’m working on this summer sound much more intimidating than they are; for example, “data coding” is just changing words to numbers but sounds like something you might need a CS degree for. I’m learning for myself personally there are a lot of things I assumed were outside of my skillset simply because I didn’t understand them, and I can imagine this phenomenon is worsened for those without the privileges I have.
I’m really excited to bring some of my own struggles and assumptions I’ve worked through to my UROP job next year, and I’m grateful for this opportunity to refresh myself on what it’s like to be an undergrad in a lab. Talk soon!
