Day 4

First of allI introduce this post with an exciting announcement – I have finally been assigned to my project for the summer! Turns out I am working with my roommate Vanessa and with Prof. Patrick Shih on a Facebook Extension Project. I’m pumped! I really love the idea of working on another project that facilitates connections and more support between people who have rare diseases, and I’m especially excited to refresh my coding skills and being able to create a Facebook prototype that can hopefully ease their challenges in life. Tonight after I finish my IRB tests, I’m going to start investigating related works and make a list of questions for my first meeting with Patrick tomorrow morning 🙂

Today, we started out the day with some ShareLatex troubleshooting. I finally figured out how to properly reference things by using .bib files, and it turns out it’s really really easy. Other than that, I feel pretty familiar with it.

We also had a presentation on documenting qualitative data from Katie – turns out my paper circuit “documentation” is not quite up to par. Proper documentation should include a detailed step by step process (and possibly include pictures) that could possibly be replicated if necessary. So flip back to Day 3 for an updated step by step process of making my paper circuits!

Afterwards, Annu presented to us how to use Dedoose and the basic steps to coding. I’d like to pride myself on how well I know Dedoose, so I finally got to sit back and breathe without freaking out during this session. Turns out after simply analyzing the observations everyone took of people using their phones at restaurants, we all found a ton of similar codes.

When talking about developing a professional website, I learned that Ben had a twitter called “BenPhacts.” More importantly however, I found out how important it is to have a professional website that is frequently updated. Tonight, I plan on working on my WordPress website and LinkedIn. As tomorrow is also the first ProHealth Tea, we will be giving short elevator speeches. I drafted one during class today:

I’m Grace Bastin. I’ll be a sophomore at Indiana University this upcoming fall, and I’m originally from Greenwood, Indiana. I’ve always had an interest in health and the wellbeing of others, especially because I have a slew of chronic conditions myself. I have previously worked (and will continue working in the fall) with Haley MacLeod (an IU PhD student) on a project involving people with rare diseases and how they struggle to find an adequate amount of support from their caregivers. So in the fall, I hope to develop a prototype to ease that challenge and facilitate more support between people with rare diseases. In the future, I hope to continue researching in the field of health informatics, and hopefully one day create something to ease challenges in the lives of those with chronic conditions so they are able to be more than their disease and live their best lif

Today me and my partner Olivia also made an app using appery.io. Our love of cupcakes and complete hunger drove the purpose of this application: finding the perfect cupcake for your mood. Users can choose what kind of category, or “mood” they are in to try a cupcake. Our app then takes you to a recipe, or to the nearest location where one can find the kind of cupcake they’re looking for. Here’s a link of me taking a video of the application and demonstrating what it would look like if someone chose the “chocolatey” option:

So as tomorrow is Friday, I realize I just about made it through this week! Is may have taken a lot of coffee and monster and staying up late/waking up early, but I’m glad I put so much pressure on myself to keep up with the intensity. I hope my research project continues to push me to be my best and work my hardest. Ultimately, I’m just excited to learn more and more!

Here’s my list of things to do tonight (in case anyone was interested):

  1. Complete CITI exam for IRB
  2. Update paper circuit blog to the correct form of qualitative documentation
  3. Work on Professional Website and LinkedIn
  4. Make a list of questions for my meeting with Prof. Shih tomorrow

But first, I’m taking a nap! 🙂