Learning From Others

When I wasn’t presenting my poster, I attended other poster sessions and panel discussions from other Rollins students and professors. On the same day of my presentation, we had our other students present their posters with the professors they worked with. Kaylee Atwell, a Rollins alum, did a paper presentation with Dr. Andrew Luchner before my poster presentation about her senior research from the previous year.

Jenny Goldsher was a research assistant for both Dr. Woodward and Dr. Harris on two separate research projects; one was about circadian rhythms in baseball players and the other was about people’s coping mechanisms on Facebook before Hurricane Irma. Kaitlin Snyder presented two posters, one of them being an extension of research about personality and compassion. Charlotte Leftwitch, Jessica Gonzalez, Dr. Houston and Dr. Harris had a poster exploring the construct of GRIT. Dr. Dunn presented a poster on her research in conjunction with the business department at Rollins about facial characteristics.

                                                          Jenny and Dr. Woodward at the 8:30-10:50 am poster session.

On Friday, Dr. Dunn, Dr. Luchner, Kaylee, Nicole Dunn (Dr. Dunn’s daughter) and Kaitlin spoke on a panel discussion about the challenges clinician professors face in the classroom settings and how to deal with them. They mostly spoke about the boundaries that they set with students, as students have a tendency to disclose information to them like they are their own personal therapists. This is an important issue, as it breaks ethical guidelines that professors have with their students. They spoke about setting boundaries right away with students and having them have space to talk about some of their issues. If they felt that they were unable to remain objective, they would speak with the student about going to CAPS or other services.

I learned so much about other research areas from my colleagues and I am excited for their future research!

Presentation Day

On 3/21, I presented my Honors in the Major senior thesis at the Southeastern Psychological Association (SEPA) with my professor/mentor, Dr. Rachelle Yankelevitz (Dr. Y). I have been working on every aspect this project since May 2018. There has been countless hours of hard work since starting this and I am so proud that I was able to present this to my peers, professors and other researchers at the conference.

What made this extra special was that my presentation was on World Down syndrome Day. The subject of my research is a 5-year-old from the Hume House with Down syndrome. To show support for the special day, everyone is encouraged to wear “silly socks” and/or wear yellow and blue. Dr. Y and I decided to wear our versions of “silly socks” and put a small sign on the poster about our support for the cause.

  Our “silly socks!”        I wore a pink sock with hearts on it and a Star Wars sock. Dr. Y wore dog socks!

Once we set up the poster, we took our shoes off so everyone passing by could see the socks. It was well received by everyone who stopped by the poster; they would see the sign, look down at our feet and smile or say “good for you.”

  Dr. Y and I in front of my poster.              I got ribbons on my badge that said “First time attendee” and “Poster presenter.”

The session only lasted 1 hour and 20 minutes, which went by fast! I spoke with current UCF psychology students, a researcher who was familiar with video modeling for children with autism, and other Rollins professors who were interested in my project. My main goal was to be able to say what my project was able in the most concise way possible. I reached that goal, as evidenced by the verbal reinforcers of “Very good/that is exactly how to say this” after I spoke with a person. Overall, I had a positive experience presenting my research!

 My poster                      presented at the conference and the sign that referenced our socks.

During the 2019 SEPA conference in Jacksonville, FL I was able to gain valuable knowledge through interacting with other students and professors. Three other students attending the conference had first-hand experience with the graduate school application process. I was able to ask them questions about their experiences, and they provided me with information and suggestions specifically about the interview process.

All of the Rollins psychology professors on the trip were very helpful and excited to discuss both undergraduate research and the graduate school process. From these meaningful conversations, I sparked a few ideas for future research as well as gained a better understanding of the undergraduate research process as a whole. I enjoyed getting to hear about research from all of my professors’ viewpoints. Since the department contains a diversely specialized group of professors (Clinical Psychology, Behavioral Psychology, Social Psychology, Sleep Psychology, I/O Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, ect.), I was able to gain a complete set of information on the research process. I am very appreciative of how genuinely supportive all of the professors on the trip were, not only during our presentations but during our free time as well. It was also interesting to see all of the different research projects that students and faculty were working on. Specifically, I was impressed to see the diversity in research not only within our group but throughout the entire conference. This challenged me to consider new areas of interest and helped me gain knowledge on new topics.

Attending the 2019 SEPA conference in Jacksonville, FL was a wonderful experience. I was fortunate enough to be a part of two research projects, one as a part of the undergraduate CEPO part of the conference. My CEPO project was entitled “The Real Home Field Advantage: Baseball, Circadian Rhythms, and Jet Lag” and was a statistical analysis of the 2018 World Series in relation to athlete performance. I was able to develop this project with the assistance of Dr. Suzanne Woodward who has experience in clinical sleep psychology. She helped me analyze previous research on Jet Lag and travelling athletes and provided me with assistance in creating this project. I am very thankful for her assistance and the expertise she provided me to fully understand and develop my research.

The second project I worked on was entitled “Calm Before the Storm? Hurricane Irma, Anticipatory Coping, and Facebook”. This project explored the ways that Facebook users described the site’s impact on their anxiety levels before Hurricane Irma. I am a research assistant for Dr. Paul Harris on this project and benefitted immensely from his guidance and knowledge during this research project. He taught me about qualitative data analysis which we then applied to our dataset of over 1,400 open ended responses. This hands-on experience enabled me to fully understand and gain confidence in the research process. Overall, both projects that I was fortunate enough to be a part of provided me with extremely valuable experiences and knowledge in conducting research.