Networking

Networking has been a hard one for me, truth be told. I knew and expected to speak to strangers once I started working but did not realize how helpful networking is during the college years. For the majority of my college years, I have spent my semesters quietly studying by myself or in groups but not really speaking to professors much. But now in my senior year, I do wish I had done more networking with professors and mentors. These wonderful people are full of knowledge about internships and pathways to achieve what you want to acomplish. If I could give a small piece of advice to anyone coming into college, I would tell them to get a mentor right away. It was hard for me to get a mentor because I wasn't sure of what I wanted to do. But a mentor would have helped bring some clarity in my college path. Whether with professors or other professional mentors... connect, connect, connect!

Cultural Responsiveness

Cultural intelligence and cultural responsiveness are the abilities that allow people to see the differences in opportunities and treatment given to some while being denied to others. These abilities also help controlling one’s own feelings and perspectives to be completely impartial and therefore fair in any situation. This is not always easy as everyone has their own beliefs and way-of-life that are unique to them. But, cultural intelligence is necessary for U.S. communities to flourish as these are comprised of many people and usually these are of different cultures as well. Some strategies discussed during the seminar were curiosity and emotional intelligence. I will focus on adopting these two in my professional life to make sure I am being fair to those around me. Curiosity to me means staying alert to those things that other cultures do but I don’t understand and tend to dismiss. If something about one culture or person puzzles me, I will ask or do my own research to know what it means. Emotional intelligence means to put aside my own feelings to welcome new information. If anyone is interested in working on their cultural responsiveness, the following article gives a very straight-to-the-point overview and good examples. Guzman, Maria R., Durden, Tonia R., Taylor, Sarah A., Guzman, Jackie M., Potthoff, Kathy L. (2016). Cultural competence: An important skill set for the 21st century. NebGuide, Nebraska Extension. https://extensionpublications.unl.edu/assets/html/g1375/build/g1375.htm#:~:text=Displaying%20the%20cultural%20competence%20behaviors,similarities%20and%20differences%20among%20cultures.

About Me

Hello there! My name is Wendy Pinon and I'm a senior at ASU, pursuing my bachelors in Pharmacology & Toxicology. This semester has been long awaited! I am getting more clarity as to what I want to do after graduation and am very excited yet a bit scared, truth be told. This semester, I am taking an intro to programming class. This new interest started last semester with the help of my TRAIN class in which we were introduced to computer science and I learned about the biological data science masters program. I am in the process of applying to this program and am very excited about it as it challenges me in everyway possible. The idea of doing something that comes easily for the rest of my life.. was daunting to me. But with programming, I know I will be continually challenged and pushed to keep learning throughout my life. And that is one of my goals in life: to always keep learning, always keep growing. Happy semester everyone!

Social Media for the Professionals

Last week on our TRAIN class, we had a visitor come in and talk to us about developing our online presence professionally. She is Dakota Webber from ASU’s Career and Professional Development Services (CPDS). During her presentation, we were prompted to visit our LinkedIn accounts and reconfigure them a bit to fit our goals. One of the things we did was to follow and connect with people that we could see as our mentors. I was not able to find a specific person who does what I want to do in the future but I did find a few that are in very closely related fields. There was a question on my mind: I asked if we needed to put our entire work history on our profile since most positions that I've held do not pertain to the field in which I am interested. It is not needed but a fellow classmate did mention she was able to land an internship thanks to her mentioning on her LinkedIn account that she used to bartend. So even though these positions do not pertain to our field, they are life experiences that can help us develop skills to handle different situations.

The TRAIN mixer brings gratitude to the forefront

This past Friday, I attended the TRAIN mixer at the ASU West campus. The room was filled with current TRAIN students as well as a few future transfer students. Welcoming us was the team of professors that support this program. I always enjoy this mixer as well as the class. This group of students is one of the most welcoming group I have encountered in my educational journey. They are all transfer students from local community colleges, like myself. They understand the journey to get to where we are and they all seem to have similar goals. We are all in the sciences, so they understand the importance of having and giving support as these are not easy degrees. The thing that I like the most of these mixers is the openness with which we all come. Everyone is open to talking, even those who are not the most social. Since we have things in common, it is always easy to find ways to communicate and connect. For example, while talking to future transfer students I noticed some had questions about the transfer process. It is hard to believe I went thru that same process less than two years ago. The one piece of advice I gave them was to keep in touch with their TRAIN program coordinators as much as possible. During my first year in the program at Phoenix College, I had a person with whom I would meet over Zoom (Covid times) to go over the current research I was exploring. Although I am unsure of his title, he was able to guide me thru the process by reminding me the dates to apply to ASU, the seminars I should attend, and he was able to bring other coordinators into our meetings whenever I would ask questions he couldn’t answer. My leaders made the transfer process so incredibly easy that I didn’t feel any anxiety, which I tend to have naturally when I do things I haven’t done before. It was like following a chocolate cake recipe step by step. With their help, I felt as if I was already part of ASU even though I had not even applied. Thank you Phoenix College TRAIN staff. I wouldn’t be here without your hard work. This first generation, adult student will always be grateful to you. -Wendy Pinon