Experiential Learning II: An Internship with the Surgical Outcomes Research Center (SORCE)
All the way back in Autumn 2013 (the beginning of Year II), I was freaking out. Ever since I had declared my intention to pursue Pre-Med in college, I had been told that I needed to do research, and I still hadn't found a position. I had scoured the Undergraduate Research Database for months, but none of the positions that piqued my interest had panned out. It was really important to me that I do research that I could care about. I didn't want to spend hours on a lab bench mindlessly transferring liquid from one test tube to another. I wanted to find the research meaningful to me and applicable towards my future career goals.
Just when I had lost all hope, I found a posting for an Internship with SORCE. It seemed like the months of futile searching had racked up a great deal of karma or something, because the internship seemed like the jackpot. It was through UW Surgery, it seemed geared towards pre-med students, I would earn credit, and it had an emphasis on professional development. I immediately contacted them, and was asked to send in a cover letter, which you'll find below.
Just when I had lost all hope, I found a posting for an Internship with SORCE. It seemed like the months of futile searching had racked up a great deal of karma or something, because the internship seemed like the jackpot. It was through UW Surgery, it seemed geared towards pre-med students, I would earn credit, and it had an emphasis on professional development. I immediately contacted them, and was asked to send in a cover letter, which you'll find below.
I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best, and was thrilled when I was called in for an interview. It's incredible how much I began to learn from SORCE even before I started working there. I had never really gone through a formal interview process before (I'm pretty sure this was the first cover letter I'd ever written), and so it turned out to be a really great way for me assess my interviewing abilities and grow from that. I was initially really intimidated to be in such a professional setting, but I found that once I began speaking everything worked out just fine. Luckily, my interviewers were really pleasant (Nicole the Program Manager and Yuki who would be my supervisor for RYGB specifically), and I was able to make them laugh and shower them in my charm. That interview really set the precedent for how I've interviewed since, in terms of the tone I take, being mindful of enunciation and projection, and always tempering my personality with a constant display of professionalism. Every time I've come out of an interview since, people always tell me that I rocked it, that I'm an incredible speaker. I personally think they're all out of their minds because when I hear myself speak I sound incredibly dumb, but if that's not the case, then it's because of that first interview with SORCE.
In any case, I was soon notified with the incredible news that I was accepted as Intern for SORCE to work in their RYGB lab. A detailed description of the project and my experiences within it are included below.
In any case, I was soon notified with the incredible news that I was accepted as Intern for SORCE to work in their RYGB lab. A detailed description of the project and my experiences within it are included below.
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One thing I'll say about this entire experience is that I think I got more professional development than research experience. I picked up a lot of technical or scientific information while I worked in the pig lab with regard to anatomy and surgical techniques, and I also am more aware of the research world in terms of what the process for getting study approval is, what kind of administrative hoops are required, and what a published paper looks like. But I never got to conduct any of my own research or feel like I was directly involved in the act of research; a part of me feels like I missed out on a true "research" experience.
But the professional development was invaluable. One of the responsibilities of SORCE interns is having to do a weekly front desk shift at their office. It required us to develop a great deal of professionalism, since we had to cheerily greet everyone who entered the office, be able to talk and engage with people, answer phones, maintain the cleanliness of the office, and so on. We weren't allowed to do any homework or just chill while we were there either, they wanted us to always be working on SORCE tasks and keep busy, which is an aspect of professionalism that I had never encountered before. I realize now how vital constant productivity and avoiding idleness is in the workplace. I think some people would roll their eyes for being obligated to sit at a desk for an hour and play secretary, but I think it was really great for me in terms of developing patience, diligence, and a positive attitude. Every job has aspects to it that are obligations, but being willing to approach those obligations in the right way ensures that the responsibilities of the job are carried out with high quality.
The emphasis on professional development in the SORCE internship is clear given that we had mid-quarter check-ins and also performance evaluations for each quarter, which I've included below.
But the professional development was invaluable. One of the responsibilities of SORCE interns is having to do a weekly front desk shift at their office. It required us to develop a great deal of professionalism, since we had to cheerily greet everyone who entered the office, be able to talk and engage with people, answer phones, maintain the cleanliness of the office, and so on. We weren't allowed to do any homework or just chill while we were there either, they wanted us to always be working on SORCE tasks and keep busy, which is an aspect of professionalism that I had never encountered before. I realize now how vital constant productivity and avoiding idleness is in the workplace. I think some people would roll their eyes for being obligated to sit at a desk for an hour and play secretary, but I think it was really great for me in terms of developing patience, diligence, and a positive attitude. Every job has aspects to it that are obligations, but being willing to approach those obligations in the right way ensures that the responsibilities of the job are carried out with high quality.
The emphasis on professional development in the SORCE internship is clear given that we had mid-quarter check-ins and also performance evaluations for each quarter, which I've included below.
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Of course, given that it was an internship in a research organization, our professional development was research oriented. Through the course of the internship, I had to conduct two research projects. This involved finding, reading, and analyzing existing literature on the topic. To do this, I had to use PubMed for the first time, which was a great experience. Learning how the database worked and how to access the articles proved very helpful in the future when I needed to do so for other classes. There were various assignments to the research project, but it all culminated in an oral presentation given to key members of the staff and the other interns. The presentation was followed by a Q/A session, so it was really important to be very knowledgeable and well researched on the topic. Then, using the feedback from the presentation, we had to write a final paper. The research project was a really great assignment they had us do. The final paper and the research process was great because I don't really get a chance to do that kind of scientific writing anywhere else. Even the formatting of the citations was different! It was great getting to adapt my writing style to adhere to the conventions of the scientific community. The presentation itself wasn't a big deal for me. I've had a lot of experience with public speaking and I enjoy giving presentations. All in all, I had a blast with both projects.
However, I was having difficulty deciding what to do my first research project on. I asked one of the interns, and he told me to do something that I had an emotional connection to. As I began to consider what was important to me, I started scratching my head...and there was my answer.
However, I was having difficulty deciding what to do my first research project on. I asked one of the interns, and he told me to do something that I had an emotional connection to. As I began to consider what was important to me, I started scratching my head...and there was my answer.
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For my second and final intern presentation, I wanted to be a little more serious. I wanted to raise the stakes of my presentation, to make it about something that really mattered. And to do that, it had to be personal.
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The final part of my SORCE experience was working as a Communications Intern. Unfortunately, the RYGB Lab did not receive the funding to continue its work. Since I still had one more quarter to complete, I was shifted to Communications which was a brand new department. Communications is basically the marketing team for SORCE. The supervisor for the project is in charge of SORCE's social media presence by managing their website and various social media accounts.
My day to day tasks varied as an intern on the project, but part of the job was monitoring the social media accounts and gauging the traffic to each. I also had to research news stories or current events that were related to some of SORCE's areas of research so that we could post them online and raise awareness about the organization. But there were other "communication" projects that existed outside of pure marketing. One of the projects the head of the organization tasked us with was doing a review of all the articles that had been published by the team of physicians and researchers affiliated with SORCE. We had to find all of the articles on the online database and then write a summary of each article while tying its relevance to what SORCE was attempting to accomplish. It was pretty cool to find a practical purpose for the tools I had picked up as an English Major. I had to do a lot of reading and critical analysis, and then perform a lot of synthesis while writing concisely and clearly.
The coolest thing I got to do, however, was create a short video for our website. I mentioned to my new supervisor that I was interested in film-making, which turned out to be great because she too was a filmmaker and had a great project in mind for me. She had all this footage and transcripts of interviews of the head staff of the organization, so she tasked me with creating a short video that focused on "Patient Advocacy". To do this, I had to scour through the transcripts of all the interviews and find dialogue that best served this theme. Then I had to stitch these various pieces of the interviews together into a kind of script. When my script had been approved by my supervisor, I began compiling the footage using Adobe Premiere, an editing software I'd never used before. It was great experience learning how to use it, and it was also just plain old fun. I've made it abundantly clear in this portfolio how much I love film-making, so getting the chance to do it in a professional setting was a pretty surreal experience.