Now that my fellowship this summer is over, it’s interesting for me to look back on how I went into my project and how my perspective has shifted. This experience has been a wonderful one, and there are many things I have learned from it, and many ways i’ve changed over the summer.

The biggest takeaway for me this summer is to be aware of your expectations. I went in feeling like I wasn’t good enough, feeling self conscious about my research abilities, and comparing myself and my project to others. But through this experience I have realized that no one’s research goes perfectly, and as cliche as it sounds, everyone has imposter syndrome. One of the most relieving and heartwarming parts of the summer for me was the last meeting we had as a fellowship where many people in my group talked about our insecurities and our worries about our research and our place in scholarly work.

Secondly, things will not go as expected, this is the only thing you should expect. Prepare yourself mentally to have bad days (or weeks), and to run into technical difficulties, and feel behind (even though you aren’t behind).

Finally, I think one of the amazing things about this fellowship is how tailored and unique it can be to your field, interests, and goals. While I did have an independent research project, my mentor set up clinical observations for me in my field which was a wonderful added experience for me. In addition to that, she also heavily emphasized the importance of reflection throughout the summer. Not only reflecting on the qualitative research I was doing, and identifying themes, but also on social work, clinical psychology, mental health, and marginalized experiences, and the intersections between all of these. On top of reflecting on our field and research, we had plenty of reflections on how future students of hers could approach a fellowship like this.

I emphasize this point because these reflections allow you to better understand your field of study and future career goals, but it also allows a lot of personal growth to develop as well. I am incredibly thankful for this opportunity and can’t yet predict how much this has helped me in achieving future goals and aspirations. Next steps for me will be going into my senior year, starting off with an internship in the Institute of Politics and a placement with the Elsie Hillman Scholars program.