REFRAINING FROM PROCRASTINATION

During the week of October 17 to October 23, some of the key points that were learned in the Independent Study and Mentorship class was researching the professional career and topic more at length, continuing to make phone calls to potential mentors for brief informational interviews, constructing the digital and binder portfolio, and learning about how to refrain from procrastination. The first accomplishment that was achieved this week was successfully constructing the digital and binder portfolio. This portfolio is a mass collection of all the weekly reports, research assessments, interview assessments, original work, mentorship, and final product. This binder and website will be presented at the research symposium and the final presentation night. Another accomplishment I achieved this week is successfully scheduling the four potential interviews with the doctors. The reason this is an accomplishment is because the doctors that I primarily was interested in interviewing all were interested in holding an interview with me. Also, these CT surgeons all worked at Baylor Heart Hospital in Plano, which is the location I was interested in for my mentorship. This week, while researching about cardiothoracic surgery, I learned about cardiomegaly, which is the condition of an enlarged heart. In the future, I plan to learn more about hospital structure and college programs that ready me for medical school, rather than restricting myself to only learn about procedures. Another objective that was covered this week was how to refrain from procrastination in our work not just in ISM work, but also daily life chores. The class watched a TED talk video about a young man who compared a initiative task taker to a monkey who procrastinates. This TED talk related to me well because I tend to procrastinate, not because I am lazy, but because I feel that my best work comes from when I am under a time crunch or a stressful situation. This quality will help in my medical career because often in dire situations you cannot panic, but you must use your mind well and work efficiently to save your patient. Some of the challenges that I faced this week was contacting the professionals because doctors are incredibly hard to get in contact with because of their schedules. I now feel much more confident in speaking with professionals, and I see the growth from the beginning, where I used to stutter a lot, to now where everything comes with proper sentence flow. My future goal for the next week in ISM is to become more organized. ​