Mid Summer Institute Reflection

        I will be answering some mid-evaluation prompts provided by the department. This blog post serves as an evaluation of the Summer Institute as well as my own progress at a midway point.

1. Which of your stated internship goals have you met so far? Explain how you have met them and how you are planning to meet those not met yet?

        From general goals, I have been successfully applying my academic skills to a non-departmental work environment, communicating complex ideas at the appropriate level for the opensource community audience in writing and in speech. These particular goals can be all well-seen in my teamwork cooperation and behavior. I am consistent as a group leader and a group learner. I try to be empathetic to the learning styles and challenges of all people, and try to lead by example and learn with an open mind. From my personal goals, I have definitely been successful at using my preparation as a Teaching Assistant for developing engaging material for students in Data Science track courses. I believe that I have stayed inquisitive about the information presented and asked questions at the appropriate level. Though at the beginning the work goals were very blurred and the instructions were ambiguous, I stayed positive about the road ahead and continued asking questions that helped everyone in my team to better understand the scope. I believe that I showed my best work in the beginning rather than in the end when everyone had a clear grasp of what they were doing.

        I accomplished the other two goals, staying engaged by self-starting during my remote research and using my journaling/blogging skills for reflection, by trial and error. The road was bumpy, and I had difficulty with staying engaged with the internship, and consistently blogging and reflecting. I have met all of the expectations, meaning I was clocked in on time, and I wrote at least three blog posts a week. However, I had slightly higher expectations for myself. As I look back at the experience, I did not want to learn, but be perfect. I wanted to be in my performance zone, rather than my practice zone.

2. How are you reacting to a bad day or disappointment? How would you like to react?

        As I reflect back on the beginning of the internship, I cannot help but still feel the anger I felt when things were extremely ambiguous. It felt like we, the interns, needed to give meaning to certain parts of the process instead of receiving instructions. I felt very neglected, especially, when we would receive contradicting points and instructions from different people. Even though I was angry, I did not allow my anger to interfere with my professionalism. My outlets were conversations with my friends with whom we shared the experience, but I did not let my emotions take over in conversations with others, and, especially, the leadership. I understood that nobody knew exactly how this path was going to unfold, and all we could do was trust the process. So, we trusted the process, and at times I even led the group in certain directions. Ultimately, it all worked out and we have the final product.