Note from ASE staff: The blog below was written by Vittoria Tanisha, a student in Dr. Marilyn Mackiewicz's Capstone class - Empowering and Advancing Students in STEM. Dr. Mackiewicz is a Research Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Portland State University and is entering her third year as an ASE mentor.
Also, find out more about College Prep Classes at Saturday Academy and consider applying to be an intern through the ASE program.
As an aspiring psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, who is interested in teaching, research, practicing medicine, public health and mentoring, I decided to take “Empowering and Advancing Women and Underrepresented Students in STEM” as my senior capstone class at Portland State University. In the class, we cover various major professional development techniques that have been beneficial in helping me to reach my goals. Early in the class, I got the chance to conduct a focus group with applicants to the Apprenticeships in Science & Engineering (ASE) Program. It was fun to get to know the high school students and to find out which professional development skills that students would like to understand more.
Our culminating interactive workshop took place Saturday, December 2nd at Portland State University. We covered topics such as negotiation, seeking out financial resources to help fund college, networking, mentors/sponsors/advisors and communication. These topics were based on suggestions that high school students in the focus group suggested were important to them. These were also professional development skills and topics we find important to college undergraduate students that we wished someone had provided to us before starting college. This workshop was a one of a kind opportunity for high school students to learn about these areas that can help prepare and propel college and professional career planning.