Weekly Report 10/26-11/2

This past week in ISM has been very slow. I still haven't had any success at finding interviews, but I'm beginning to believe that it's not a matter of lack of effort, but rather it's a matter of bad timing. Most of my calls have either been on the weekend, during lunch hours, or after school. I feel that if I called early morning, around nine o'clock, I'd have much more success. I also need to work on finding and sending emails rather than only making calls. I believe that as long as I keep persevering and find one interview, my experience will get so much better.

In other news, marching band season is almost over, so that should free up plenty of time to focus on both schoolwork and ISM, relieving a lot of the stress I have been feeling these past few months.

So this week, I plan on calling those who I have already called, but at an earlier time so I have a chance of speaking to them. Maybe this second time will be what I've needed to get that crucial first interview!

Weekly Report 10/19-10/26

This past week was a stressful one. It was a week with a large workload, but I believe I handled it well. I'm still working on making calls to professionals, but have not had much success. That's mostly due to a low volume of calls on my part though. Luckily I have a list of biomedical engineering specialists in the area so now it's just a matter of finding these professional's contact information and reaching out. This list has dozens of names, so hopefully casting a wide net will get me some interview opportunities. This week will be focused on getting those interviews, because I'm behind on those.

After working on the assignments this week I spent my time researching prosthetics. I found that the field is expanding at a faster rate than I originally thought, which is just as exciting as it is intimidating. I need to remember though that with proper training and education I can be one of those people making headway into new projects to help those in need.

My main constraint and cause of stress has been a lack of time outside of class to take care of what I need to take care of. Luckily my main commitment at the time, marching band, is coming to a close, so once the season is over I should be able to focus much more of my time into this class.

Weekly report 10/12-10/19

I felt that this week was fairly productive. I found out more information about my field of study by researching articles for the research assessment. This included an amazing article about an artificial heart that could almost replace a heart entirely and didn't even beat. I also watched a TED talk about a new advancement in prosthetics that allows the brain to almost directly interface with the prosthetic by practically rewiring the neurons that would normally control the arm into the chest muscles. Then electrodes would pick up on those nerve impulses and carry them to the proper channel in the prosthetic arm. Further research shows that there is progress to use fiber optics to pick up on the same data, allowing for further reduction in the bulk of the prosthetic and even allowing them to grow in complexity. This has me really excited to join this field of study and eventually work on these projects.

I'm still behind in my calls, but I have found a list of names that work in the biomedical engineering field and once I do more research for contact info I should have a substantial amount of people to call or email to set up an interview.

Weekly report 10/12-10/19

This week in ISM I made more attempts to contact professionals. I still have little success, but I'm thinking this has less to do with the people I'm calling but it has more to do with how I'm trying to contact them. Most of my attempts have been past 2:30 and on the phone when I should be trying to email them either in the morning or at Lunch. This should help me get more responses. I have almost exhausted my contact list, but luckily I should be getting some help on that front with friends helping me find more contacts.

This week we had our Business Symposium which gave me excellent feedback on my interview skills. I believe that this event has helped me improve as a person and given me renewed confidence in finding interviews in my field of study. On top of feedback, I was able to network a bit and even got a professional's email address to help set up an interview. Maybe once I start this first interview it'll snowball into even more interviews, as most everyone has told me that getting the first interview is the hardest part. Once I do get this interview though it should be easier for me to get the information I need and make informed decisions about my mentor.

ISM Weekly Report 9/15-9/28

These past two weeks have certainly been fruitful! I have my resume just about finished up with only minor edits to make such as ordering and organizing it to look more pleasing and to add in a bit more information. On top of that, I have both of my research assessments finished and I learned quite a bit from them! I found that prosthetics is indeed a specialization path for Biomedical Engineering, so I'll be looking more at biomedical engineering in general to get a broader sense of what is to come of that.

I've also begun making calls, but with no success so far. I'll admit, I haven't been as productive as I should have been on this due to distractions from my personal life. I'll attempt to be more productive this coming week and make calls during the week and leave more messages to hopefully get a few research interviews. Hopefully I'll be able to get a interview or two soon so I can get as much done as early as possible in order to gather as much information as possible. This next week I'll focus on getting my resume completed, making my research portfolio, and make a few tweaks to the blog in conjunction with the calls.

ISM weekly report 9/8-9/14

This week was a pretty big work week. Not only did we learn more about professional dress,  but we have to get it approved. I decided to get it out of the way early so I can focus on other tasks.

I redesigned my blog a bit, giving it a new title and working on the layout a bit. I need to add my quote to the side bar and maybe implement more of the suggestions made in our group session.

Finally, this week I finished up my contact list, which I plan on expanding and my resume, which I could also possibly expand.

ISM Weekly Report 8/25/14-9/8/14

These past two weeks in the ISM program I learned what is expected of me, gave a speech about me, and set up this blog to showcase my growth and experiences in ISM. From my speech I found that I have a lot to learn about how to properly give a speech and to speak with and portray confidence. On top of this, I learned about my colleagues in this program thanks to some team building exercises and their personal speeches. Thankfully, I wasn't the only person who was nervous and this helps me know that I'm not alone.

I now have my quote, mission statement, and career and industry forecast complete, with my resume and interview questions coming up as the next assignments I need to tackle. I plan on doing research soon into the local biomedical engineering scene to see what professionals in my area could help me gather information about this field. Hopefully I'll be able to find someone in prosthetics so they can help me understand what kind of education I need. I remember from my campus visit to UT Austin the presenter for the biomedical engineering school told me that mechanical engineering or electrical engineering would be better if I am interested in prosthetics, so I need to find out ASAP if that's the engineering school to pursue.