Quality Collaboration

Last week, my greatest accomplishment was, surprisingly, just being assigned something to do by my mentor. My mentor, Dr. Sullivan, provided me the login information to a genetics textbook and recommended I read Chapters 1 and 2 before our next meeting. This was because we both recognized the need for me to improve my understanding of genetic vocabulary and giving me a run-down of the basics. I am not ashamed or embarrassed by this at all, and Dr. Sullivan also told me I shouldn't be because it takes years for some students to understand these terms. This will repair my foundations and also could help me in my original work, as I might need to read through some research papers for data & information.

A second accomplishment was some progress on my original work, though not as much as I would have liked. In my last blog post, I mentioned that me and my mentor considered completely changing my product proposal, but after an email exchange with her, she told me how I could instead effectively revise my existing proposal. I was much more open to this, since I do not know if I have the time to create an entirely new product proposal, anyways. Thus, I will be researching the same three genetic diseases (albinism, cystic fibrosis, and Down syndrome), and I think I will be making a sort of interactive, animated PowerPoint where I can take the audience through the different karyotypes. I have prior experience with this, as well, with my Economic Research Team project for Business Professionals of America. I feel much more freer now because my original product proposal severely limited me, and it was oftentimes difficult to find certain things in particular diseases. Now, I am broadening my sources, as my mentor suggested. I feel as if this might be going back to square 1, but at least I know now this time my progress will likely be far better.

This week, I plan on finishing Chapters 1 and 2 in the genetics textbook and also taking notes on them to retain the information. Furthermore, I will be working to gather data on the three diseases for this week.