Here's the slides from my presentation of learning. I presented it at the Salk and at school. It describes my project and all of the information needed to understand what I did. The slides are also linked above, because the moving gratings didn't transfer below.
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My greatest takeaway from this internship has been the fact that most science is greatly interdependent on other forms of science. Everything is connected, and most of the time, it’s really useful to know about these connections. On one hand, it’s really useful to know about scientific fields that are similar to yours, but on the other hand, you only have so much time to spare for learning about something only somewhat related to your field. You have to prioritize what other scientific topics you learn about, which can sometimes be really difficult.
This makes it somewhat easier than other fields to switch focuses in. If you start out doing one form of science, these connections make it easier to switch to another one, especially early in your career. This is a really big comfort, as I still have no idea what specific field to go into. I might end up choosing something I don’t enjoy, but even if I do, I can probably switch to something I’m more interested in with relative ease. As for an actual college plan, I think I might focus on physics or chemistry if I want to go into a scientific career. I have a few directions I could go from there. I love cooking, and have always been fascinated by the chemistry of cooking, so I could do something with that. I’m very curious how the brain processes vision and sound, so I could do something similar to this internship. I also love reading and writing, so I could consider being a science writer/journalist. Either way, I think that physics and/or chemistry would be useful in all of those career paths. And either way, this internship at the Salk will really help me to be more prepared for these careers. My final week of internship is coming up! It feels like it’s been such a short amount of time since I started working here, but it’s been almost three weeks!
I have made many meaningful contributions to my workplace thus far. I’ve helped one of my coworkers out by acting as a subject in one of his experiments. I’ve also worked on my project, which isn’t directly beneficial to my mentor, but is beneficial to my co-intern Emelia’s and my introduction to scientific research. Also, the specific question I’m trying to answer has already been researched, but if I went just a little farther with it, I could break into new territory, and make entirely new discoveries. This is a really exciting feeling - I could make wholly new discoveries about how the world works, and help people to understand the brain better, all before I’m out of high school. I’ve measured the success of the work I’ve done at my workplace by setting daily goals (and weekly goals, and goals for the whole internship), and evaluating how much I’ve completed at the end of each day (or week, or month). This has been really effective for me, because knowing what specifically needs to get done leads to a more productive day - I know what I need to get done by the end of the day, which is a much easier thing to tackle than, say, just knowing what needs to get done by the end of the internship. My internship has inspired me to ask many questions about the world. For instance, I have grown even more curious about the workings of the brain since I’ve started here. Especially vision and language processing. I’ve become motivated to learn more about neuroscience by reading books, and even consider it as a possible career path. If I do select this as a career path, I now know what some of the educational milestones I will have to overcome are. For instance, I know I will have to at least complete graduate school, and most likely be a postdoctoral researcher as well. In the mentor interview I completed earlier this month, I learned that in this field, it’s very useful to have a background in physics, something I didn’t expect at all. Two people told me separately that physics is a very useful thing to major in for undergraduate work. I don’t yet know exactly what field I’m going to go into, but I will definitely keep that in mind as I go forward. My internship project is in full swing now! I unfortunately don't have many pictures to share of my project, because of legal issues with sharing things I discover here at the Salk. I can, however, give you a brief summary of what I've been doing.
Over the past week or so, I've begun collecting and analyzing data for my final product. This consists of me doing an experiment many times, changing things like the Spatial and Temporal Frequencies of the stimuli, to in the end see how the contrast sensitivity limit changes. After I do three runs of the experiment at one Spatial and Temporal Frequency, I change a variable and do it all over again. Once I have some data, I can analyze it in MATLAB. To do that, I have to take the mean value of contrasts in the experiment, then add all of the mean values of matching Spatial and Temporal Frequencies, to find the mean contrast for that Spatial and Temporal Frequency combination. The rest of this week will be devoted to taking measurements, and next week will be data analytics and preparation for my presentation. My final product will be a Contrast Sensitivity Function, with the x-axis representing Spatial Frequency, the y-axis representing sensitivity, and there being multiple lines, each representing one Temporal Frequency. I’ve found that self advocacy is very important in the “real world” of work. Mostly, the self advocacy I’ve been seeing in my internship has been asking for help when I don’t know what to do. I’ve been doing this a lot, because I’ve been having daily meetings with my mentor to talk about the project, any questions I have, and a plan for the next day. As anyone who’s ever worked with me will know, I’ve never been reluctant to ask for help if I need it.
Also, I’ve been trying to follow the advice from the document, “How to be a memorable intern”. For instance, I’ve been using a notebook to do everything for the internship. I’ve been bringing it to meetings, which has been incredibly useful. I can write down to-do lists, any advice my mentor gives me about the project, and other random things I need to remember. I’ve also been taking notes about the books I’ve been reading, so I can remember the information better, and also so I can refer back later without having to flip through the book every time. I’ve definitely tried to get to know all of my colleagues as well. During lunch, everyone talks about whatever comes up, which has been a good way to get to know everyone. We’ve talked about our projects a lot over that time. I’ve also been helping out one of my colleagues by participating in an experiment he’s running that’s similar to mine. I’ve also tried to keep busy as much as I can. It hasn’t really been a problem, though, because I’ve been assigned to read so many books, and have a bunch of tasks that are related to my project. Keeping above the dress code has been a slight struggle, because of my limited wardrobe, and the need to be able to either walk long distances in it, or carry it. Luckily, though, the dress code in my lab is pretty casual, so as long as I dress nicely (SLC attire), I’m good. So, now that I’ve been in the lab for a little over a week, I have a better idea of what my project is going to be. I’m going to be doing an experiment trying to find the limit of what we can and cannot see - the “contrast sensitivity” of humans. To do this, I’ll be running an experiment (which I’ll write in MATLAB) seeing what the lowest contrast is where people can still see a stimulus. Using the data from this experiment, I will come to a conclusion, and map the contrast sensitivity function. My overarching questions for this experiment will be What are the limits of sight? and What shape is the contrast sensitivity function?. Another “product” from this internship will be the skills and knowledge I will learn by doing the project. Things like neuroscience, both technically, and philosophically, MATLAB, and Fourier mathematics, including trigonometry, and calculus. To get these skills, as I’ve mentioned, I’ve been doing a lot of reading, as well as doing practice in MATLAB. For instance, I made some graphs using MATLAB: a sine wave (blue), a cosine wave (pink), and then added them together (black with a heavier line weight). I also made a luminance grating, which is essentially a 2D picture, where luminance changes in one direction. It is 2D, but the values of the numbers/colors only change in one direction. If you pick a point on the graph and follow it horizontally, the values of the numbers/colors will change, but if you follow it vertically, they won’t change at all. The luminance grating that I made is a sine wave, so it oscillates between -1 and 1 gradually, creating the blurry effect. To make this project a success, I will definitely need support from my mentor, as well as some other people in the lab (with different specialties). I will also be working with another intern (from Columbia University) who arrived at the lab at the same time as me. She and I will most likely be working on a similar project, though she is staying at the lab for longer than me. We will still need to know the same information, and have already become valuable resources for each other.
A side note: I brought in my homemade new-guy pie! Just to give you all an idea of what I've been doing here at the Salk, here's a list of books I've been given to read.
I still have a lot of questions about my internship, even after completing my mentor interviews. What are some of the other non-research neuroscience jobs out there? What other applications does MATLAB have? (Other than what I’m doing, programming a stimulus and mapping data.) Exactly what is my research question going to be? What are some of the other projects going on, both in the lab, and the Institute as a whole? This internship has been very connected to what I’ve learned so far in school. First of all, all of the neuroscience I learned in biology this year, and the trigonometry I learned in math have come in handy more times than I care to count. But beyond the actual content I’ve learned, the soft skills I’ve developed at HTH have been helpful. For instance, I’ve noticed that the self pacing I’ve learned at HTH is vital in a real job, where there’s almost no structure to the day. Though I had a slightly rocky start, as I got used to pacing my work, I’ve become far more productive (and less bored, because I’m consciously choosing to not just work at one thing all day). Another HTH skill that I’ve found really useful in my job is research. I’m pretty independent at my job - I have a daily meeting with my mentor, and then I’m left to do whatever task he assigned me - so I’ve had to rely on my research skills to look up minor things I need help on. That means that if I really do have a problem with something, I can ask my mentor for help after I’ve troubleshooted it myself. Through the interviews I conducted (and also regular conversations I’ve been a part of), I’ve decided that the mission of the Salk Institute is to further science. Whether that be for curiosity, battling ailments like cancer, or even other things like architecture and theatre, it depends on the lab, and the person. Something fun that’s happened in my internship has been talking with my colleagues. Though I was pretty intimidated at first, (these people are so much smarter, older, and more experienced than me!) I’ve started to really enjoy talking with them, about science, or even random stuff. Many of my colleagues have recommended books for me to read, and one of them even lent me her copy of a book that she heard me and someone else talking about (The Astonishing Hypothesis, by Francis Crick). Another fun thing that I’ve been told about is an office tradition, where the new employee has to bring in some pie-like dessert (it’s aptly named “new-guy pie”). I plan to bake a pie over the weekend, pictures will undoubtable appear here. I’m actually taking a mix of the Sprinter, Coaster, busses, and my own two feet to get to and from my internship. I’m travelling from Oceanside to the Salk, which ends up being about a two hour long journey (from the moment I leave the house to when I arrive at Salk). I’ve actually really enjoyed it so far. Minus the weird people, I’ve really liked having some time in the mornings and afternoons to read, listen to music, or decompress, without having to pay attention to the road (like in a car). And I’ve even discovered that another student takes the same Coaster as me, albeit with different stops, so we’ve decided to try to find each other if we can. Some skills I’m learning at my internship are MATLAB (I’ve actually gotten pretty good at basic things), Fourier math concepts, and a working knowledge of visual perception and neuroscience. I’ve mostly been getting this knowledge from books, the internet, and talking to my mentors/people in the lab. I would say that the main thing that strikes me about my workplace is how big it is. Not only is the Salk Institute really big, with over 20 labs under its umbrella, the lab I'm in is huge as well. It has a ton of people, including grad students, and some really interesting scientists. For instance, I met Roger Bingham earlier today, a co-founder of The Science Network (a collection of online video series about various scientific topics). Also, I've noticed that the lab is very diverse. I've heard multiple languages being spoken, and even talked with my mentor about diversity in science (something I'm very interested in).
The lab as a whole works with the brain's vision system - our perception of the world around us. The work I will be doing is in psychophysics, which is, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the "study of quantitative relations between psychological events and physical events or, more specifically, between sensations and the stimuli that produce them." I will be creating and programming the stimuli for an experiment, and then mapping the data from the experiment and coming to a conclusion. So far, I've started reading up on the coding language I'm going to be using, MATLAB, and some math I'm going to need to know. One of the things that struck me about the work I'm going to be doing is that I'm going to be doing a lot of coding, something I didn't really think would be necessary here. According to my mentor, though, there is a good amount of coding in science. As I said, I'll be learning MATLAB, so I'll be able to see exactly what its applications are. Something I'm excited for is learning more about neuroscience, and how the brain works. This is a topic that has always interested me, though it has always been too complex for me to understand. I hope this internship helps me to understand some of the more technical, difficult to understand parts of neuroscience. Something I'm worried for is not having enough to do through the day, and just sitting around wasting time. I'm also worried that I won't be able to learn MATLAB in just four weeks, and that I'll have to settle for a less interesting product because I wasn't able to program anything better. Either way, I know I'll have a great time learning what I can here. Wish me luck! |