This week I gave a presentation on heart disease to a high school health class with a fellow DI. My supervised practice is now officially over for the semester–my semester ends Monday, December 11th (after two presentations).
Here’s what my week looked like:
Monday:
Another DI and I taught 6 high school health classes about heart disease and dietary approaches for disease prevention. A lot of the kids seemed really interested and answered the questions we had for them. We tried our best to make the presentation interactive and ask a lot of questions to keep them engaged. While there were a couple of sleepers in each class, for the most part, they were paying attention and seemed interested in learning. This was a fun experience that I’ve never had before, though I’m not sure if I have the chops to be a teacher (teaching the same thing for 6 class periods was exhausting…). After we were done teaching, we updated the bulletin board in front of the school-based health center. A couple other DIs planned the board to be about healthy holiday eating, and since we were there anyway we put it up for them.
Tuesday:
Another project work day at home. I spent my day chunking through all of my end-of-semester projects and studying for our last exam. The largest project that I’ve been spending the most time on is my individual research poster. Each of us has to develop a research question based on the anthropometric and dietary data we collected from freshmen in high school. Then, we have to create a poster that answers our research question. I decided to determine the relationship between fiber intake and central adiposity (belly fat). Based on the data we collected, there is no relationship between the two (bummer). However, there’s a lot of research out there that suggests a relationship does exist, so that’s redeeming. :P
Wednesday:
I spent the first half of the day continuing to work on projects and preparing for our exam. Then, I left for campus before rush-hour traffic hit. We had our last exam for my night class tonight. The first part of the exam was typical multiple-choice and short answer, no problem. Then, we had to develop a menu for a holiday meal that fulfilled cancer and DASH recommendations. After that, we had to write an entire grant (wait, what?!). This definitely threw me, but luckily, since it was an open-everything exam, we were able to use the internet to figure out what to do. The only other exposure I’ve really had to grant writing was one class period in undergrad and our seminar last week. Then, at the end of the exam, we had to write a request for funds for a conference (like you’d do if you worked at a university). This was strange to me, since we’d never been exposed to it before, but it wasn’t too challenging. I think we were all pretty surprised by this exam since it was so different from the first one (and more time intensive). It felt very good to get it over with though!
Thursday:
I put the finishing touches on my research poster before submitting it (feels good). Then, I added some more things to my portfolio and worked a bit more on my marketing project. There’s fewer and fewer things standing between me and winter break!
Friday:
I continued working on my projects, and then Spencer came over! We had a pretty low-key evening watching a couple of movies (“Masterminds” and “Are You Here”). It was so nice to just to relax for the evening. It snowed too–so pretty!
Weekend:
Spencer and I went to the movie theater to watch “The Disaster Artist”–very funny! I finished up my projects and preparing for presentations as well.
Monday is our presentation day, and then it’s winter break! I’ll make my usual weekly update posts over break, and have a few extra posts as well. Until then!
*This post contains affiliate links–I will never promote a product I don’t believe in–thanks for your support!*