McNair Scholar: Prepping for the future takes on a new meaning

Unfortunately, I'm waiting on a specific product to ship for me to continue data collection. Since the UCLA National McNair Conference is just around the corner, this week I spent most of my time preparing for it, both practically and mentally. More specifically, I've been putting together my research presentation, while worrying about the oral presentation. This will be the first time I'll be presenting research in front of a large group of people, so my nerves are on edge. However, I've made a lot of progress this week, so I hope I can finalize the presentation soon so I can practice as much as possible. For me, the most nerve-racking things about this oral presentation are the potential questions that may be asked. I want to make sure I'm prepared for any question, so every time I set up a slide, I write out what I want to talk about on that slide, so I can see the potential questions that may be raised. This led to bunch of reading, but fortunately, it has helped me understand my research project at an elevated level.

The week in McNair has been entirely GRE prep as usual. One significant thing about this week is that our final Graduate School Survey was due on Thursday. The Graduate School Survey is a 16-question survey that requires us to identify three potential graduate schools, along with three faculty members from each school that we are interested in. The school surveys take a really long time to complete (I delve into the schools deeply, so it has taken me around 3-5 hours to complete just one). Those surveys have helped me immensely, because now not only do I know what schools I want to go to for graduate school, but I also know more about how I can set myself up to be the best candidate for any graduate school.

(Editor's Note: This is another in a series of summertime blog posts from McNair Scholar Anjana Dissanayaka.)