3.5 – Professional Performance

Students will be able to perform competently in a professional setting.

Most of my opportunities to apply my experience from Longwood in a professional setting came during my senior year.

My first and most relevant opportunity came during my directed study, or independent research. I did not get to do a lot in the way of literature research or experimental design, but I did have to help my mentor run the experiments that he had planned for the semester. This involved me stepping way out of my comfort zone and working with a computer program to train AI to track insects. I wouldn’t consider myself very tech-savvy, at least not in the computer programming sense, so this was all very new to me. I spent hours working both one-on-one with my mentor to learn how to use the program and alone to refine the AI’s tracking ability to my mentor’s liking. At first, I wasn’t very confident, but I quickly got the hang of things and was even invited to help write a paper that might go to publication later on.

My second opportunity came when I was asked to work for Clean Virginia Waterways, a program housed on Longwood’s campus. This would have normally been an internship position, but the manager was in need of an employee to pick up where things were left off after everyone was sent home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was also out of my wheelhouse as this position dealt more with the ecology side of biology and that is not the route I decided to take when choosing my courses. It proved to be valuable, nonetheless, as I got to broaden my horizons and work on projects I wouldn’t have been able to work on otherwise. I was originally supposed to work here for one semester but was invited back to work for another.

Another opportunity I have had has been tutoring Human Anatomy and Physiology. These were some of my favorite courses here at Longwood, so I was more than happy to hear that I had been recommended for the position by one of my professors. I liked helping others learn and understand the material better and I feel like it was a valuable experience.

My experience working in a professional setting has obvious applications. Nonetheless, I am excited to see how I will be able to utilize that experience in future academic and professional environments.