A Yellow Goodbye

This week I gave my final presentation, cueing the end of my AP Research project. It’s amazing to believe that I have accomplished such a task. Not only is this the longest paper I have ever written, it is also the most impressive. I have written the equivalent of an undergraduate senior research paper, as a high school senior. I think I learned a lot about time management as well.

This year, I was given a lot of freedom in what I was doing. My classes were more theoretical and required more discussion, thus less homework, and I was taking less classes all together. I learned that I have a lot of free time, and not enough hobbies to fill it with. But I also learned how to enjoy the work I was doing. Given all my free time, I actually began to look forward to doing my homework and doing my research, which to me, was the greatest thing that could come from senior year. This year taught me how to enjoy school and how to enjoy the things I was learning, rather than just doing them blindly. It felt good to be doing my research because I wanted to, and I think because of my freedom I was more likely to do things effectively. I learned how to do things on my own time, and when to do them. My teacher was very helpful in assigning a timeline that I think was very effective. The only thing that I think would have been a little better would be more time to implement our research, because I would have liked to do more with my research but I was limited due to the time span. But I think our timeline was pushed back because of our proposal, which was ultimately worth it.

While a lot of things weren’t perfect this year, the feeling of completion of this project is. While I’m happy to have completed such an enormous task, it’s also a little bit of a relief to no longer have to speak about how industrialization influenced the portrayal of synesthesia in Russian and American literature during the late 19th and early 20th century. Eight months is a long time to focus on such a narrow topic. It made me realize that doing intense research may not be the field for me. I want constant change and excitement so I’m going to need some different things in my life. I also really enjoy talking to people and research doesn’t entirely lend itself to that task.

In the end, what I found the best part of this experience was the knowledge that I gained. All of the research resulting in a better understanding of synesthesia, has helped me realize that I want to continue learning. I want to know more about the world and about everything, but I don’t necessarily want to be finding that information myself. I want to recite that information to others, but I’d rather be learning new things all the time and talking about them. I can imagine myself working for some science company, like Space X or Solar City, as a marketing representative or something, but not actually doing the science and research. I’m glad that I learned that now though, and not later in life.

Overall, I’m so grateful to have been given the opportunity to learn so much. I’m happy to be done, but sad to be moving on from such a huge part of my life. It’s a bittersweet ending, and in my opinion, a yellow goodbye.

Presentation Practice

My life consists of three things right now: synesthesia and coffee. Somehow I was able to bring those parts of my life together the other day.

Last week I gave a practice presentation. Due to a few things lacking in the presentation, I was asked to redo it on Saturday. During the time in between, I worked hard to make my slides better, as well as the way that I relayed my information. To say I was anxious about presenting would be an understatement. I practiced in the car, with friends, at work, etc. At one point I actually had like eight coworkers listen to my presentation. This was particularly helpful because after my first practice presentation, one problem that I had was that there were few connections between topics. I was having trouble relating everything back to synesthesia, By having a group of individuals who have not been exposed to the phenomenon or any part of my research , they could tell me easily where they felt lost. Unfortunately, I think that it may have been too complex for just an impromptu presentation because a lot of them were still very confused afterwards. But I felt much more confident after that presentation (also it was a great way to show off what I have been doing for the past eight months).

Over the many many practice presentations I’ve done, I’ve learned a few things. First breathe out, not in. When giving my presentation to my teacher, I realized that I have breathing problems. Although I think my speech wasn’t too fast the second time I showed her my presentation, it still may have been too fast. After doing some research, I found that breathing out, rather than breathing in can help greatly in controlling your breathing. So I’ve been doing exercises where I breath out using my stomach muscles, and then let the air just flood back in and I think it’s helping. I don’t feel overwhelmed to breath in air and breath it all out while talking.

Additionally, I have learned that my chain of thought it kind of all over the place, and scripts are truly very helpful. Often times, I make logical jumps that not everyone can follow. What I’ve found is that I have been doing this research for several months, so I know where everything is going and what everything means. Unfortunately, other people don’t have all the knowledge that I have acquired, luckily, we developed language so I can communicate the knowledge I have. I just need to be more aware of what is common knowledge and what is research knowledge. Luckily with my practice presentations with several people who are unfamiliar with the topic, and a couple with some people who are familiar has been the most beneficial. Having people who see the gaps is helpful for closing those gaps. And having people who understand the project is helpful for finding solutions to those gaps, and finding inconsistencies within the research project and then the presentation.

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Reflections

This past week, we submitted our final papers to the college board. A task that has made me feel incredibly accomplished. Although we have our presentations coming up (practice this week and final next week), I feel as if I've completed the biggest part. All of the information exists and all I have to do is have a conversation with some people about what I have done over the past eight months. I thought it might be interesting to see what doing this project has taught me, aside from a lot about synesthesia and Russian literature. 

First, there is a lot of research that needs to be done, and the sooner you find your topic, may not be the sooner you find your research question. So I knew from last year that I wanted to focus on synesthesia. After bothering Kathleen with dozens of questions, she suggested that I do my srp on it. I took her suggestion. Unfortunately, the field of synesthesia is very underdeveloped. You may say, hey! Great news for you! But the problem is that there are a lot of scientific stuff that still needs to be discovered, and I am a high schooler who does not have the money to fund scientific research or a lab. So, although more humanity based research can be explored, a lot of my topics led to surveys and interviews. Unfortunately, I did not have a group of people that I could interview. So I had to take a different approach. I researched semiotics, but came up short. I eventually came across research about synesthesia in literature, and decided that this is the field I should research. 

Second, your original literature review will not be your final literature review. During the research process so many things change, that the first thing you do, is not going to match your final results. What you need to do, is adjust for that. It's ok for them not to match, but make sure you don't match your results to your literature review. But rather your lit review to your results. It's actually kind of fun to see how your lit review differs, and see the evolution of your research. My first literature review was heavily focused on the scientific aspect of synesthesia, and explaining how it works. But now it's very little explanation of the science of synesthesia, and the justifications for the time periods and literature, and explanations of the information found previously. If you want to make yourself cringe, go to your first draft. 

Third, I felt that I would be extremely stressed out when we were first told what we needed to do, but the reality is that I could not imagine a more relaxed way of writing essentially an undergraduate research paper. Although this was our teacher's first year teaching this class, she gave us all the tools that we needed to succeed. In college, it's very likely that I will also have to write a research paper, and I will be left to my own devices. Although I will have the help of a professor in my discipline, I will not have the help of someone who understands me. My teacher led us through the steps of a literature review, and explained a multitude of methodologies. This information will help beyond what we accomplished this year too. Knowing how to write different methodologies will be helpful for whatever field I decide to be in. I'm glad that I got this experience. I may not be in college, but I learned how to write something for college, but with a little extra help. 

Word count: 604