In this unit, we were asked to study techniques for professional networking and to build an online profile on LinkedIn. I have never used LinkedIn before so I set up an account following the techniques I have researched. I was able to make many connections right from the beginning and quickly realized the importance of professional networking. It is a place to advertise your experience and skills to potential recruiters while also growing your online connections. Connections are important and can lead to opportunities that may never have opened up if you hadn’t taken the time to expand your network.
For my report proposal, I chose to investigate the documentation practices of undergraduate research assistants at the UBC Visual Cognition Lab because we recently discovered a major problem with a particular experiment due to poor documentation practices. This led to the experimental data being unusable, which was painful to hear about. As the technical manager, I believed that I could improve the documentation and archiving protocols to minimize such problems from arising in the future.
I felt that preparing my report proposal and outline was very straight forward because it involved a situation that I experienced first-hand. It got me thinking about why it happened and how it can be prevented, which motivated me to write this proposal. The most difficult part of this formal report has been constructing the survey while also being unbiased. For example, I would catch myself formulating questions that would potentially verify what I believe the problem to be. Instead, I should be formulating unbiased questions that would allow me to determine the exact problem.
During the peer review, I learned that I should constantly be mindful of the reader and to define terms that may be considered jargon. In my revised version, I added the definition of “visual intelligence.” When reading my colleague’s work, I was very intrigued by the topic of improving enrolment in the UBC chemistry program. It was something I could relate to as I was required to take five chemistry courses in first and second year. I believe that the seven questions she plans to address are very strong and will lead her to finding a potential solution to the problem. I am very curious about the data acquired from the survey.