Week 9!

Hi everyone!
With Senior Project Presentations on the horizon, I’ve definitely felt a bit of a stress push this week. I made sure to find a presentation template that I liked, and then I just started drafting everything together. I’ve found that when I’m drafting for a big project like a presentation, its easiest to just write down everything I think of, and then figure out what’s important and what’s redundant. I’m definitely going to have to use this technique a lot in these next few weeks.

This week, I also got to attend a really fun event for my company. I helped kids make popsicle stick catapults (they were safe though, promise) and talked to them about fun scientific concepts. I also got to see part of a Mystics game, though the stale nachos I bought from the concessions stand definitely soured my experience. Other than that, I spent most of this week practicing for my pitch, and I ended up creating a script I’m really proud of. I also practiced using Excel and learned how to transfer Excel graphs into Powerpoint, which was a helpful experience because I’ll need to have that knowledge in my future career.

Finally, for my research project, I started to organize all the different parts of my argument. I tried to condense my notes about CR theory into a few bullet points, clarified my research question, and continued to look for information that could fix some of the holes in my argument (specifically, stats and quotes). I feel like recently I’ve spent a lot of time reading and taking notes without a good idea of what I want my final project to look like, so I’m glad I got to spend some time on planning and logistics. In terms of further progress in my research, I also identified possible barriers to negotiation/resolution techniques from both sides, such as national identity and hostility. Anyway, I’m definitely getting more excited and more motivated to prepare for my presentation.

Thanks for reading!
~ Maria