S-STEM Scholar Marissa Heeb's Blog

 1. What are your professional goals, 1 year, 5 years and 10 years into the future? What will accomplishing these goals let you do? How will accomplishing these goals impact those around you and what will it make possible for those in your community?  2. What are societal challenges that matter to you that you think it's important to deal with now? What do you think are the challenges that will matter 10 years in the future, and 20 years in the future? How do you think these challenges will be addressed, and what will need to happen to make sure that they are? 3. What is something that makes you optimistic about the future, and why? This could be something big and impersonal (improving price of Li-ion batteries) or something small and personal (a new pet). Please describe how it feels to focus on this thing that makes you optimistic, and discuss whether you think it is a good idea to be intentional about being optimistic.  One year from now I would like to be working in a...

 What did I know about my field three years ago? Honestly, I didn’t have any knowledge relating to the career path that I’m following now. I was still majoring in nursing and then I stumbled across a intro to microbiology class and had a beautiful explanation of microbiology from Dr. Cunningham. The rest, as they say is history.  When I think about the next three years and what I would like to learn I guess for me personally I want to better myself academically and in personal aspects. Academically I’d like to be close to obtaining my masters degree or working towards my PhD. Which means in the next three years I am hoping to have developed a lot of skills necessary for doing my own research. I would also like to really work on traveling, exploring, and taking the time to really enjoy the life that I’ve been given. 

 The last few weeks I've really focused on sticking to a schedule. Each week creating a to do list and making sure that everything is finished a day early incase anything comes up. In doing so it keeps me on track for finals week. I've also managed a pretty strict study schedule to make sure I don't have to cram prior to any exams. 

 This last month in the Stem class we've spent a lot of time on personal development. Working on our resume and building an online presence to build relationships for the future. Relationships that could help along the way with graduate school or future career aspirations. Building a correct resume and online persona is vital in today's society for being successful in your future career. 

 I've spent the last month in STEM class we spent time thinking about who we were and the difference in fixed vs. growth mindsets. I realized that when it comes to school and work I have a growth mindset, however, in my personal life I have a sort of fixed mindset. Which I'm currently working on changing. The growth mindset allows me to want to learn for myself rather than just to pass a class and do well. It helps me to push myself in aspects without worry of what happens if I don't get a good grade. 

Did some more PCR last week. Unfortunately it wasn’t successful. Took some time to kinda rethink the game plan and decided to take a different approach to some things. This week I’ll be attempting to watch as the P. fluorescence destroys other bacteria.