The Ideathon was one of the most unique projects that I have ever done. Looking back, I only worked with groups that were part of my field and not to mention that all meetings took place over Zoom. Nevertheless, the turnout of the experience felt like huge accomplishment because I got to work with a fairly large group of people who were all very different in background. We came together and got the job done mainly over the course of 3 days. I especially liked seeing everyone simultaneously work on their part of the project and how I could use other pieces of the project that were done to help me write mine.
The best strategy for communication across our specific group dynamic was communication over Zoom at the beginning of the project. This worked best because it allowed us to have rapid, real-time conversations when coming up with the skeleton for the project. Then, switching to google drive as a better option once everyone knew the parts that they were assigned.
This experience helped me think about how my research can have an impact on the social dynamic of the country or world. I did the STEM section of our proposal for the Ideathon, so I investigated how social and arts/humanities had the intersection of not only STEM – but health care. I believe that everyone has the skills needed to solve problems in a scientific way because we use reasoning to make decisions everyday. It was interesting to see how it not only comes down to individuals really knowing their niche, but how they work together. And I think the leadership skills needed in the module are things that I need to aim for in my own research. How to ask people for help, and how to be a leader. Other disciplines’ research works in a very similar way to the way mine does: collecting data and evidence – so it was very interesting to see how the methods and statistical methods used in the proposal really reflected that. Seeing how passionate every person was for the field that they were pursuing was eye-opening.
