This week we were asked to give a lightning talk for our project. I struggled to get my lightning talk down to 5 minutes or under! I started off with about 12 slides and when I went through it and timed myself, I was four minutes over. I managed to get it down to 5 minutes, 7 slides. I wanted to give a comprehensive definition of the ARC method in my presentation because it is a major part of our research study. The ARC method is complicated and can require a complicated definition, but I was able to cut it down. I also had to summarize the goals of our research in one short sentence. I also had to condense the explanation of my three activities that I was triangulating in my study. Overall, I was tremendously satisfied with the way my presentation looked visually. You can access my presentation with its animations here. If that link does not work, you can access it here without animations.

We did not get to meet as a whole with our mentor this week to discuss the storyboard or the poster because Bri was on medical leave on Monday and Tuesday. We did not get, to meet on Thursday because since Wednesday was a holiday, workshops and other meetings got pushed to Thursday. We were unable to meet on Friday because of lightning talk preparations. Although we did not get the chance to meet, I went ahead and created a storyboard in google slides. We will continue to add to it and create a concrete draft on Monday. I also accumulated a couple of poster presentations that we can use as inspiration for our final poster presentation. On Monday, we will discuss which one can work for our project and how we can go about customizing them for our paper.

This weeks workshop by David Crandall was one of my favorite presentations ever. It was great to know that someone as successful as he does not feel successful on a daily basis, and that feeling is very normal. I think that talk was important because the STEM field can be brutal, especially for minority women who are constantly walking what Williams et al. refer to as the tightrope. It is important to remember that while some people are lucky, that is not the case for everyone, especially in the STEM field. Therefore, it is important to reflect on your accomplishments and be proud of yourself. My takeaway from this talk is that you should define your own success. If you let what other people define what success is, you might never find it.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, this Wednesday was the 4th of July and I celebrated by spending time in Indianapolis with Bri, her Best Friend, Gustavo, Ahong and her friend. There we grabbed food at the Old Spaghetti Factor and then watched the fireworks show.