This summer with Brackenridge helps me to paint a three-dimensional view around research by connecting research works across discinplines, scholars with different backgrounds, and research to my personal goal, life and belief. The whole experience of me to discover the facilitators and barriers of wireless technology use of rehabilitation providers is not only solely focusing on the existing understanding in the field but also way around research including inspiring me of how to face challenges, improve communications, and make self-discovery.  

Before I step into the Brackenridge, I didn’t know there has so much changes researchers can have to go into the right direction of their final work until I experienced the process of refining methods for following checklists. All these is for doing a scoping review for developing a provider’s voice survey, basically unwrapped the complexity of the existing literature about rehabilitation providers experiences of using this wireless technology. Even I had exposure of research in high school, I always come across challenges here and there in my works. One is the development of the search terms. After using our initial proposed search terms to search the results, we realize the results are extremely broad and unrelated. So, we start to check to see if it is our research questions problems or is just the search terms need to be refined. Then we realize indeed we need to narrow down the focus by solely focusing on articles describing providers experiences of using these wireless technologies and change the areas we are going to extract articles for getting the most related results. Almost three months have passed being in Brackenridge, facing challenges and changes I have less frustration but more feelings of ease because I know I am stepping a bit closer to the correct direction of solving the problem. This idea also inspires me in all other areas in life: studying coursework, building relationships with others and cooking. 

Brackenridge also deepens my understanding of effective communications. Being in the seminars, I feel me and other fellows are interrelated even we are doing research works in different fields. And we are depend on the interactions with each other to communicate for gaining more understandings and finding more similarities to resonate out of differences. Since Brackenridge is an interdisciplinary fellowship, practicing being a mindful communicator when talking my project with other fellows is one of the major goals of this fellowship. Some methods to do so is by integrating examples audiences can relate, using metaphors. Having this mindset, I realize my research group is a micro interdisciplinary environment. Everybody inside has their own experiences and expertise. The sense of actively finding better ways to work together is very helpful to turn the works into productive results. Wireless technologies such as mobile phones, laptops, apps are the major communication tools my research is using. Sometimes we experienced barriers using these technologies here and there. This further reminds me of the significance of my work because they have brought more constraints to people with disabilities and create challenges for rehabilitation providers to train them to use these technologies. With all these being said, we still choose to use these wireless technologies since it is indeed convenient for people working remotely.

Connecting research to life, I learned being a researcher is not only committing to a project but to live in a lifestyle: enjoying the joys of every little steps forward and absorbing nutrients from every unanticipated turns. Indeed, Brackenridge is a large portion in my summer, but I also have other life that is correlated with my research work such as cooking, practicing karate, etc. These are essential for my mental and physical wellbeing so that I handle the unpredictable future of my project. From Brackenridge, I learned that I am a sensitive person. This is extremely beneficial for being a researcher because I can have some feelings to try a new way of giving solutions. I need to use this in moderation though, sometimes I feel my sensitivity drains me too much that I cannot focus on my work. In these moments, I just take a step back and chill a bit then packing myself up to further walk on my path.

After Brackenridge, I plan to pursue my passion in rehabilitation and continuing doing my research. Part of this decision is because I think research is extremely rewarding for myself and because of the existence of constraints and barriers in this world for groups such as people with disabilities I have to continue my work. From the next second, I will equip myself with connected ideas and experiences I learned from Brackenridge so far and further develop myself as a better person for the fields I love. Personally, I will continue to discover more pieces of myself. And I will continue practicing the hobby I started from this summer which is Karate. These for me are interconnected pieces for me to reach my fullest potential: just like the collaboration of fields across disciplines. I will use this to continue studying so I can provide better services to people with disabilities and older adults, together progressing to live a fuller life.