I did it.
I'm done with Capstone. I can't believe I'm done. I am so relieved and happy that I don't have to worry about this class. I am proud of myself for how far I've come. I've grown so much over the past year. If the person from last year saw me now, she wouldn't recognize me. I've grown more confident and more responsible. I am able to manage my coursework in a healthy way and have gotten better at my time management. Capstone has not all been easy; there have been good moments and bad moments. There were moments I didn't sleep and was so exhausted, there were moments that I wanted to quit, I was fed up with this project. There were moments I felt so stressed and dejected, and I felt that there was no way this project would succeed. But for all of these low moments, there were moments where I was proud of what I accomplished, of my presentation, of my paper, and of myself. There were moments where I completed something and I felt like I could take on the world. These were moments that reassured me that in the end, I would be okay. I learned that I can accomplish what I set out to do and am capable of so much more than I give myself credit for. This semester, I think I did really well. I accomplished everything I needed to do in a timely manner and there was really no need for me to stress. My mental health improved. I accomplished everything I set out to do in the beginning of the semester. In the beginning of the semester, I wanted to stop procrastinating and I wanted to improve my mental health. I accomplished both of those things. This semester, I worked on my time management skills and my problem solving skills. I ran into some unexpected troubles with my experiment, and I needed to find a way to improvise, adapt, and overcome the issues. These skills will definitely help my mental health in the future, as I can manage my time so I don't have to do everything at the last minute and I can find a solution to my problems. If I had to give some advice to incoming capstone students, I would say to manage your time. Everything is msanageable if you do a little bit every day. The quality of your work will also improve this way. And that's it. I'm done. Thank you for reading this. I'm done. This is it, Bye guys! Thanks for everything. The End. Tags: Time Management, Reflection, Blogs, Communication, Problem Solving, Productivity
0 Comments
Happy Holidays everyone! I am currently sitting around blasting Christmas music. This blog will be a little shorter due to the fact it is the holiday season and I am taking a break. This was the last week of school in 2018. I finished revising my conclusion and the rest of my paper. I have to combine my results, discussion, and conclusion with the rest of my paper, but that will not take long. Other than that, I didn't accomplish much else. I updated the blogs on the website and published them. I am planning on updating the rest of my website over the break. When I get back, I have to finish my presentation and my poster. I don't think those will take me that long, probably one week altogether. I then have to practice my presentation.
I've been reflecting on this past year and I have to say, it was really good. There were some moments that I would have preferred it gone the other way, some moments I wish I could go back and change. But overall, nothing bad happened. Surprisingly, my mental health has improved. While I am still extremely stressed and anxious at times, I feel like I have learned to handle it better this year. I am definitely less pessimistic and more optimistic. I have been pacing myself better and making my health a priority again. I accomplished so many things this year that I didn't know I could achieve and have overshot my expectations for myself. I am more confident in myself and my abilities. I feel confident going into the new year. Next year, I want to take better care of myself. I want to stop putting myself down and talking about myself negatively. I want to take up stretching and maybe meditation to continue to improve my mental health. I want to continue and finish the year strong. While this year was great, I can't wait to see what next year brings. Good or bad, I am ready to face what comes. Happy Holidays!!!! Tags: Reflection, Productivity, Presentation, Time Management, Planning This week was very productive. I managed to complete my discussion and sent it to Ms. Crudale to revise and grade it. Doing the discussion was a lot of work. I found sources to support the claim I was making about the data that I had and then I found sources to support the hypothetical results I would have expected had the experiment gone through. It ended up being close to five pages, which isn't bad considering I tend to draw everything out. I ended up using about 7 additional sources in my discussion, which is good. I added those to my bibliography. I presented my results presentation. I did well, except I apparently had a negative tone while presenting. I was going for a neutral tone, but I guess I didn't pull it off right. I was surprised at how well I did. I was very nervous and I felt like I was stuttering and tripping over my own words. Surprisingly, the only points taken off my presentation was for my tone. I will try to work on it in my next presentation. With only two more weeks until the end of 2018, I am in a good place. I just need to finish my conclusion and update my website. That's it. Next week, I plan on finishing my conclusion, editing my bibliography, and editing my results. If I have time, I might also edit my discussion.
My mentors have been very involved in the process. They were the ones who supplied me with data. They have also helped me revise my Capstone paper, including the literature review and the methods. In the next two weeks, they can help me edit my discussion and conclusion as needed. With all this said, I just need to finish the year strong. There is not much left to do and I know I can do it. Next week, I hope to be as productive. Wish me luck! Tags: Discussion, Results, Forward, Presentation, Productivity, Time Management Time is moving by quickly. We are now just 22 school days left until Capstone Night. Surprisingly, I am feeling good. I feel confident. I do not know whether it is because I am truly confident or whether I am just so numb to everything that my stress doesn't register with me. I am pretty shocked at how confident I am, because usually I am freaking out at a time like this. I guess it is a testament to how much work I have put in and how Capstone has changed my perception on time. I think Capstone has also allowed me to manage my stress and expectation levels much more accurately. I am more aware of my capabilities and I guess I believe I can pull this off. My draft of the result is coming along. I actually finished my draft. I didn't realize that we just had to include the charts and table. I thought we had to write something extra. I then realized that it was just the charts and tables, which I already had. I believe I am track to complete my project and my paper by December 21st. All I have to do is write my discussion, edit the results, edit my discussion, write my conclusion, edit my conclusion, edit my bibliography, and then I am done.
This week, I took it pretty easy. I finished my results, but other than that, I haven't really done anything. I did start working on a presentation for my results which I have to present next week. I haven't started working on my discussion, but I believe that I can get it done very quickly. Next week, I would like to finish my first draft of my discussion. For my discussion, I need to include other sources, since most of my results will just be hypothetical. I will use this to answer my hypothesis in a theoretical sense. I also have to present my results next week. I have a lot of work to do, but I believe I will get it done. Tags: Discussion, Forward, Presentation, Projects, Results, Time Management What have I done? Why did I do this? Did I put too much work on myself?
These were the questions racing through my mind this week. You see, I finished the results last week and decided I would work on the discussion this week. I forgot this is a short week, so I didn't have a lot of time to work on the discussion. At the beginning of the week, which was Tuesday because Monday was the day we observed Veteran's Day, Ms. Crudale gave us a task sheet to help us plan our week and next week, which will also be a short week due to Thanksgiving holidays. I thought that I would have ample time to complete everything I needed to, so I wrote that I would finish my initial discussion draft, redo my Gantt Chart, and update and revise my website. I didn't realize how much work goes into writing a discussion. On Wednesday and Thursday, we had a half-day for conferences, so between these two days, I had Capstone 2 for about 2 hours. On Friday, we had a 2 hour delay because of the snow and rain that fell the night before. We had Capstone for 35 minutes, but that time went into work for National Honor Society, which would be right after the class ended (we had Capstone last). In addition, I've been feeling under-the-weather the whole week. I've had a sore throat and have just been exhausted all week. I have had no energy to do mundane tasks, let alone my school work. Unfortunately to say, I've been slacking off all week. I wrote about one paragraph of my discussion. but other than that, I've just been staring at a blank screen waiting for the words to come to my brain and for my hands to subsequently type them. With that being said, I think next week I need to work on being more productive. During those moments of writer's block, I could be doing other work so later on it is easier for me and I have less work. I need to work on my time management as well. Granted, I had a calculus exam which I was studying for all week, but I should have enough time in the day to get most of what I need to get done done. Hopefully, next week I can put these skills to work and be extremely productive. If I can finish by Wednesday, I can give myself a semi-break over Thanksgiving weekend. Fingers crossed! P.S.- The image below is a Tamil meme that is me looking at my results :D ! P.P.S. - It just means "Friend, results have come, I've looked and I've passed! You..." Friend replies, "Oh, you use "All Clear" shampoo huh? I use Head and Shoulders bro! Tags: Time Management, Results, Reflection, Productivity, Planning, Discussion This week was actually really good for me. I finished my SAT Subject Tests over the weekend. I think I did better than I expected to, especially in the physics. Now all that's left is for the results to come in. I am done with standardized testing and I am done with the SATs for the foreseeable future. I am really excited now because I can focus all my energy and all my effort into my college applications and my schoolwork, including Capstone. This week, I began writing up my results on Monday. I began figuring out how everything should be formatted. We didn't have school on Tuesday because of Election Day, which I was really happy about. It wasn't so much of a day off though, as I had a lot of school work I had to catch up on that I procrastinated on. Still, I got it done. On Wednesday, I didn't come to school. This week was the end of Daylight Savings Time and that in combination with the changing weather really affected my physical and mental health, not to mention my mother's health. I decided to take a mental health day to recuperate. I took it pretty easy Wednesday. I did some work for my other classes, mainly my project for ECE English and notes and homework for ECE Calculus. In the evening, I went to the Open House that was happening at the school. I had already said I was going to be there, so I stuck to my work and went, which I am very proud of myself for doing. The event was only 3 hours, but by the end I was truly exhausted. I couldn't keep my eyes open. I guess I still haven't gotten used to the time change, which is something I will need to work on this week.
On Thursday, I managed to finish my results section. I thought that I needed to add some additional information that I actually did not need. Once I confirmed this fact with Ms. Crudale, I went ahead and shared it with her so she could provide me some feedback. This means that this weekend, I don't have any Capstone work which leaves me free to focus on some things I need to get done for applications and some of my other classes. This week, I was actually much more productive than I thought I was or than I felt. I am very happy that I was this productive. Next week I need to write my discussion section, so I would like to work on staying on task. I am hoping to finish the drafts before Thanksgiving so that way I don't have any work over the long weekend for this class. Let's see how next week turns out. Tags: Reflection, Results, Blogs, Planning, Discussion, Time Management, Productivity This week was hard, but I made it to the end of the week. It was the last week of the quarter, but luckily I had stayed on top of my work throughout the semester, so I didn't have any late work to complete and hand in, on top of the other work we are given in class. That was really helpful, and I have only past Shubhangy to thank. So thanks past me. But I did procrastinate in studying for my SAT Subject Tests, so that wasn't good. But the good news is that I didn't have a lot of work to do in capstone this week, so I spent a lot of time studying for the exams. I also didn't have as much homework as I did in the past few weeks, so I spent a lot more time studying for the exams than I was able to last time. This week I also finished two of my college applications and submitted them. One was Johns Hopkins University, which was my first choice school. I am really hoping all the research I have done over the past few years with scientists from the School of Medicine will give me an edge over the competition. My statistics are pretty average for their standards, which is good in my case because I am applying early decision, so the acceptance rate is higher. I also have a lot of extra-curriculars, so I am hoping all of this gives me an edge over the competition. I also applied to University of Chicago. I hope my essays and extra-curriculars will give me an edge there as well. Overall, I am glad I got two of my applications done, as it was a huge relief to finally be done with those. I am also glad this is my last standardized exam tomorrow. After this I will be done with standardized testing and SATs and will be fully committed to myself, my health, and my schoolwork.
In regards to the capstone project, I did receive some preliminary data from my mentors, as I think I mentioned last week. I spoke with my mentor and discussed the data. The data showed that the transfection didn't work and the cells did not express the gene the way we wanted it to. We will have to go back and redo the transfection in order to get the proper gene expression. This is the only data I will be receiving, so for now, I will have to write my results on this. It sucks that I wasn't able to complete my capstone experiment properly, because at first, I was truly excited to be doing this project and was fully invested in it. But sometimes life doesn't go the way you expect it to. You can do everything right, but sometime the unexpected happens. When that happens you have to make the best of it. This week I was much better at being flexible, since so many things were going on, but I managed them well and didn't have a mental breakdown. Next week I want to work on my productivity, since my results section is due next week. This week, Ms. Crudale challenged me to be more positive in my blogs, which I said I was going to do at the beginning of the year, so that's why this blog sounds more positive than usual. I am hoping next week will be even better so my blog is even more positive. Tags: Productivity, Reflection, Project, Results, Planning, Time Management Last week, I realized I was not as productive as I should have been due to poor mental health, anxiety, and procrastination. I resolved to better my work ethics, even if only marginally, this week, but alas, the universe conspired against me. This week, I was all but ready to start working on revising my capstone paper, which I received back on Monday with edits I need to make. Unfortunately, this was also the week where the school decided to issue standardized testing to determine our reading and math abilities. While in years past this would have been a one day thing, this year they switched the standardized tests and we had to test out of every grade level starting at kindergarten. This was excruciating and annoying, as the test were extremely long. Usually, I can blow through this test in about thirty minutes, but these tests took me two days each. With the reading test, there were so many passages and questions. There were moments where I couldn't think properly and just chose an answer which I believed made sense. This exam was draining and after the testing, I felt lethargic and annoyed. I could not force myself to do any other work around this time due to how draining the testing was. While the math had less reading, the questions were more complex. They took more time to answer and had more layers to it. While I like math more than reading, the math section was still draining, albeit not as much as the reading was. After finishing the reading section, which I did today, I just couldn't refocus my mind to my paper.
On the topic of my paper, there were some grammatical issues with the APA formatting in my paper. I was able to fix them on Wednesday painlessly. However, there was some content issue, with some clarifications needed to be made at places and safety information for the chemicals in the methods section needed. I was able to address some of the clarifications needed throughout my paper, but I still have a few more. I unfortunately was unable to start looking into the safety information for the chemicals. Although some progress has been made in my paper, much work is left to be done. Although I should have done some of the work at home, I was unable to for the most part. I had a lot of work to do for my other classes, especially my ECE English and Calculus classes. I also did procrastinate, but not as bad as last week. I just tend to do my work extremely slowly so work that should take me an hour takes me two hours instead. Likewise, I also tended to get distracted on YouTube at home. While I was making strides to improve my work ethic, misfortune struck again! Since my home laptop was not responding as I wanted it to, I kept restarting my laptop which caused it to crash. Now when I start it, it takes a while to load and when I log on, I can't do any type of function as as soon as I click something, my computer freezes and crashes again. I have spent the past two days trying to alleviate this issue, which took some time away from my school work. But I do know I need to change and better my work ethic, not only for the sake of my grades but for the sake of my anxiety and mental health as well. As soon as I fix my personal laptop, I will address the concerns in the capstone paper and move forward with the rest of my school work for now. Let's see how this plan goes... Tags: Blogs, Independent, Forward, Reflection, Planning, Lit Review, Problem Solving, Time Management This is the last week before finals and the inevitable end of school. To say that I am stressed is an understatement: I am stressed, tired, cranky, worried, anxious, and overworked. I have so much to do over the next few days. But I just have to take it day by day and try to finish everything on time. In order to make sure everything gets finished on time without delay, I've been trying to prioritize my tasks and multitask. For instance, during some free moments during class, I've been working on editing my lit review. I finished editing everything up to the conclusion. I felt it took a higher precedent than some of my other classes because I have a higher grade in those classes so getting a lower final exam grade wouldn't hurt my grade as much. However, based on an online final grade calculator, I need at least a 78% on my final exam to pass Capstone 1 with an A. So with that in mind, I am putting all my effort and thought into my schoolwork. The first thing that pops in my mind when I wake up is what I need to complete that day and the last thought of the day is what I haven't finished and need to do tomorrow. In Capstone, I need to finish editing my conclusion (including my potential impacts), then add the revised problem statement and methods section. After, I might need to include an intended results and conclusion section as well as an abstract, though that is pending based on the answer Ms. Veillette gives me when I ask her about it. I am hoping to finish it by tomorrow afternoon or early evening. Then I want to actually fix my website and add everything I need. It will probably take me a couple of hours, but seeing as I have a final on Monday, I will either finish it tomorrow night, Sunday night, or split the work and finish it Sunday afternoon. However, since it is due on the night of the final exam (which is Thursday for me), I do have some leeway when it comes to completing this aspect. I also need to finish the introduction and methodology for my poster for next year. I don't think it will take me that long since I know what I want to write in the introduction. I could probably finish it in about 2 hours max, even if I have some unforeseen trouble. This will probably take me to the end of the weekend, since I also need to study for my Monday final. On Monday, I would like to finish my final capstone presentation. On my methods presentation, I did really well. I got 100/102, with the two point deduction coming because I forgot to add something that was on the rubric. On the verbal aspect I was graded highly. I would like to do just as well, if not better, on this final presentation. It is just a combination of the first presentation and the methods presentation. We are on a strict 12 minute schedule so I am hoping for no more that 14 slides with content. I need to practice it obviously and get the timing down, but I think I can do it. I found the perfect theme for my presentation. Now I just have to make it through finals week. Since this week is the last proper week of school, this is my last blog for the school year. But fear not, because when I go to Baltimore to do this experiment, I will be blogging weekly again. There won't be a blog next week, but look for a blog in 2 weeks time. Tags: Presentation, Lit Review, Time Management, Project, Forward. Reflection, Problem Solving, Independent, Blogs.
|
AuthorShubhangy Raghavan Archives
January 2019
Categories
All
|