Reflective Essay Spring 2013

The spring semester has been a close for a challenging new chapter in my university life. I learned much, academically and as a person. New courses with different professors challenged me to adjust my study habits and schedules. Over all, my sense of responsibility was challenged even further than the previous semester.

This semester’s course in RISE was more hands on than the last one; we learned different lab techniques and were able to perform research projects in groups of pairs with different mentors. Of the many workshops that we participated in, some included: In Silico research (computer research) for discovering new drugs, mycobacteriophage research, and water quality testing among other projects and opportunities. For the presentations of my participation in these workshops, follow this link: http://portfoliogustavomartinez.wordpress.com/presentations/. For written reports of these works, follow this link: http://portfoliogustavomartinez.wordpress.com/reports/.

These workshops allowed us the opportunity of keeping record and maintaining information in a laboratory notebeook. keeping such a record is not as easy as it would seem, since keeping organized notes and remembering to bring the notebook to every workshop is a challenge to one’s responsibility. Also, in this course we were offered the opportunity to participate in a competition for writing creatively with science. We were to use one of the seminars we participated in as inspiration. My story, Plight of a Broken Mind, was the one to win first place in this competition. This story can be viewed in the following link: http://portfoliogustavomartinez.wordpress.com/presentations/.

This semester has been another great opportunity to challenge myself to better myself. Also, it has been another opportunity to consider my career goals for the future. All in all, despite all the educational and personal challenges, I believed myself to have faced each challenge with all my will and strength and finished them with personal pride and success.