Tuesday, June 4
Today we attended a lecture with Dr. James Oliver who shared the ups and downs of his career, as well as some advice for grad school and future endeavors in industry or research. He encouraged us to be confident and proactive in social settings, revealed the power in fostering connections with people we meet, and so much more. For me, his story helped bring light to the fact that we’re all on our own journey, and it’s never too late to try new things or explore different directions in order to find what makes you happy.
Later today, we’ll meet with Aron, the graduate mentor for the Curiosity EEG team, to chat about the articles he gave us, and to ask any questions that we have about the work we’ll be doing this summer. I found the articles to be really helpful for giving some background into curiosity, how it can be measured using EEG brain signals, and explaining some of the factors that influence curiosity and learning outcomes. It’s funny because in high school and university, some of the research articles and papers I’d be assigned to read could put me to sleep, but these were so different; I found myself with so many new questions and wanting to read more. I’m definitely looking forward to diving deeper into this topic with my team.
One thing I have noticed is that I am a slow reader when it comes to research articles and papers. Hopefully by the end of this summer I can pick up some tools that will help me learn how to read more efficiently while still grasping the main ideas and concepts.
The allergies have been getting me this week – my eyes have been so itchy. It’s also crazy humid here right now. Angelica and I have been walking to the VRAC in the mornings these past two days which has its pros and cons – the walking is nice, but I always end up with frizzy hair and feeling sticky by the time we get to the lab.
Be sure to ask Yvonne or google “How to read like a grad student” Here’s a short version that I suggest:
– Read the title
– Consider what the authors’ disciplines are, if that’s easy to see in the paper. Are they psychology, education, engineering, what?
– Read the abstract
– Now skim through the paper and just read the headings (Introduction, Methods etc) and read every caption from a table or figure.
– At the end, read the conclusions. If you don’t really care about them at that point, make some brief notes about what you just learned so you don’t read it again, and move on.
– If you do care, ask yourself if you believe the conclusions. Go back and read more about their methods and results to see if you think they support the conclusions. Then make more detailed notes and put some hashtags on them, like #experimentalDesign #EEG #genderDiffs or such.