Time for Change

Every new start comes with a purposeful change whether that is in yourself or changes in your circumstances. Regardless of what it may be, change for good never brings bad.

Weekly Report 08/28/2017 to 09/03/2017

"Old ways won't open new doors."

This past week was devoted to making purposeful changes in presentability by learning the basics of professionalism. With the somewhat daunting task of presenting an introductory speech, the week began by gathering thoughts and assembling them through diligent organization. It was in our best interest to instill the multiple components of public speaking in ourselves to successfully deliver the speech, including a poised stature, varying tone, and persistent eye contact. It was of importance to acknowledge the milestones that must be reached in order to achieve a purposeful year including research, searching for a mentor, and conducting research with a mentor in order to reach a conclusive result. The speech was written with the audience in mind in order for it to be conveyed with more and emotion and interaction rather than a monotonous professional tone with the usage of complex dictionary words that would confuse people rather than inspire. It was truly an opportunity to learn multiple factors of public speaking including voice projection, formal writing, but still making every attempt to engage the audience rather than bore them. It was essentially a daunting task to overcome nerves and deliver a speech with confidence regardless of the tense environment. Although, I did not present this week, it allowed me some extra time to reevaluate shortcoming that may become an obstacle in delivering the speech with utmost confidence and poise. Initially, the obstacle during practice rounds was to organize thoughts and convey the speech as if I was verbally speaking rather than quoting off a memorized script with additional emotions that may not have actually existed. The process gave the chance to step back and evaluate what I wanted out of this program, the process of achieving it, and the reasons behind ambitions. It was to be realized that nobody would have the same structure to the speech as it was purely a personal itinerary of ambitions, inspirations, and struggles over a lifetime. The endeavor of constructing a speech presented itself with multiple obstacles as well as multiple opportunities to grow as a speaker and ultimately initiate a start towards the final 25 minute speech at the end of the year.

In regards to the future, the following week will be spent compiling a list of contacts including neurosurgery and neuroscience professors to approach for mentors. The following week will consist of multiple challenges that will have to be overcome in order to be able to further contact potential mentors in order to begin the process. As of now, the main obstacle is finding neurosurgeons as it is a specialized field and there may be more people approaching this topic which makes the availability of neurosurgeons even more difficult. In addition, most neurosurgeons’ environment is very complex as each case comes with a heightened source of urgency which may not qualify a high school student to be a part of. The following week will also comprise of deepening our insights into our topics by annotating articles and researching on neurosurgery to get a more deepened understanding into the field.

As a result, this week was an initiation towards setting a pathway to future aspirations and making every effort to learn attributes of professionalism in order to assist us in our future endeavors in our ISM journey to take our ambitions to greater heights.