Wellness & Self-Care

Hello!

We're nearing the end of the semester! It's been an incredible first semester at ASU West and I'm so excited to continue my educational journey! Over the course of the spring semester, we've had discussions around wellness and ways in which we self-care. Mental wellness is big for me and I've learned the best way to take care of that is by taking breaks while studying. As much as I want to believe I can study and do homework for hours at a time, the information doesn't really stick with me. Studying in smaller increments and with other people typically helps me learn the material. When studying with others, I quickly learn what topics I'm not well-versed in as I have a difficult time explaining it.

The second piece of self-care that has been important to me has been a healthy diet and exercise. I've gotten better this semester about consistently squeezing in gym time between classes or before classes and it's helped me feel better about my health. I also started eating better and bringing snacks with me to school to help me get through the day without getting snack foods at Starbucks or eating at the cafeteria. 

Good luck to everyone on their finals!

Vulnerability in STEM

 Hey All-

We've been reading Daring Greatly by Brene Brown over the past few weeks and it's really provided some great insight in navigating a STEM major. One of the more important topics for me has been around the vulnerability to share openly about my educational pursuits. I am a returning college student that has changed majors several times and the fear and shame around not knowing the exact career I want after graduation stalled me from progressing forward. In my 20's, I felt like the people I was in school with had their whole life planned out and I was struggling to identify a major/career so I quit. After a short hiatus from education, I decided to go back to school and try taking a few classes at a time. In my time back at school, I've had to learn to take risks, try new things, and get involved. All of this took vulnerability. I had to become vulnerable and ask for help, ask for research opportunities and be willing to hear "no" sometimes. Learning to overcome shame and fear is a daily effort for me. It doesn't come naturally and sometimes I have to convince myself to do it. But it's worked. I get the opportunity to study Black Widow spiders over the Fall 2022 semester and a Summer Internship at ASU and I couldn't be more grateful for the opportunity.

Representation in the STEM field

After reading the article "Factors influencing participation of underrepresented students in STEM fields: matched mentors and mindsets" by Kricorian et al., 2020, I had some thoughts around what representation looks like for me. Growing up LGBTQ+ in the 90's, it wasn't often I'd see myself represented in the media. If there were gay characters, they were played by heterosexual men. You're represented by a man pretending to me gay. The article stated that about half of the individuals surveyed saw their gender represented and 43% saw their ethnicity represented in STEM careers (Kricorian et al., 2020). I think when I was younger, it was difficult to imagine being in any type of STEM or job role unless I could be like other cisgender men. As I continue to pursue a degree in the STEM field, I'm meeting more people like me and it's encouraging. It's encouraging to see the STEM field making a concerted effort to diversify and step away from the typical gender roles of the past. Just recently we've seen the first transgendered person, Rachel Levine, assuming a high-ranking role for the United States Government. This is huge! She is representing the LGBTQ+ community and giving hope to many people still searching for themselves. I only hope I can provide the same by sharing my journey through a blog, on campus and/or within the industry.

The Power of Not Yet

I'll start by prefacing that I'm a returning student. Until 2 years ago, I was doing college very part time with no specific goal in mind except to complete a degree. Any degree. I had to take BIO 100 as a prerequisite (begrudgingly) and went into it with a mindset of "just get it over with". As the semester continued, I found that I enjoyed Biology and had an amazing professor (Doug Hester) that encouraged me to think about a career in science. I decided to change my major and began taking classes that I believed were far above my comprehension. I learned early on in those "difficult" classes that I didn't have to score perfectly to learn the material. I realized I was so focused on grades and how well I do, that I stayed in what felt like my "comfort zone" and made some decisions out of a fear of failing. As my educational journey has continued, I find that I align more with a "Growth Mindset". 

I try not to identify with words like "smart" but instead remind myself that I'm capable of hard work. I'm capable of putting time into studying. I'm capable of learning new concepts. The shift in focusing on what I'm capable of learning, rather than achieving an A+ in every class, promotes positive thoughts around the learning process. I spend less time trying to memorize concepts and more time trying to comprehend them. So far, this shift in thinking has given me grace in difficult classes and I'm learning to enjoy my educational journey. I really like the power of "Not Yet". It allows me to learn and be ok with the prospect of not being perfect. I can continue to study and put forth effort until I begin to understand what I'm studying.

Last semester at Phoenix College!

 Hey All-

This semester is almost over! It feels bittersweet leaving Phoenix College and transferring to ASU in the Spring. I came back to school 1 1/2 years ago as a business major, not sure what I wanted to do with the degree. It felt like a "universal" degree that could be used in many businesses and that was as far as I got with it. I had to take Biology 100 as a pre-requisite and it was my professor, Doug Hester, that encouraged me to look into a science degree. Its the best decision I've made so far in my college career. I feel like I have direction and motivation for my Biology degree. It's an industry I've always been interested in, but was afraid of the classes. I'm grateful to the TRAIN program for the opportunity to learn and discover what I'm passionate about.

As for my project this semester, I was unable to obtain results which was disappointing, but a learning experience no less. I look forward to working with the TRAIN program at ASU and finishing my bachelor's degree. Good luck on finals everyone!

Image: https://www.kansan.com/chalkmagazine/20-self-care-tips-to-get-you-through-midterm-season/article_e4fd1084-140f-11eb-9081-9b928ed53a03.html

Final Paper

 Hey All-

It feels like this semester flew by! Final Research paper has been submitted! My research didn't quite turn out how I expected this semester, but I'm grateful for the experience. I was unable to find consumer products containing BPA so the good news is: companies using less BPA in consumer products! The bad news: I only got to complete half of my experiment. I tested a wide range of products from soup cans to plastic bags to chapstick lids, all of which came up negative for BPA. I found several studies confirming that BPA leeches from plastics in natural and laboratory environments but was unable to obtain the same results. Here are some photos of the products and the test swabs:

What a week!

 Hello All-

This has been a rough week! I've been studying for an Organic Chemistry final all week and haven't made much progress with my research. My intent is to do the first part of my experiment tomorrow since it will be my first free day since last week and to begin revising my research question and hypothesis to better match my experiment.

I'm glad we got the opportunity to meet with Faculty at ASU a few weeks ago for the mixer also. I feel like I've gotten the opportunity to get familiar with them and some of the projects they work on. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Nightmare fuel:

Waste Footprint

 Hi All-

Information from an article that has stuck with me: "For plastic products in general, there is no declaration of composition, and most commonly, not even the type of plastic is specified. The composition of the plastic product is usually only known to the supplier to some extent" (Lithner, 2012). The concept that over time, we've gone from using glass containers to using plastics for a majority of food products with little knowledge of what we're exposed to is somewhat nuts to me. Plastics are part of our lives in almost everyway possible from food containers to medical supplies to clothing. 

The United States is the world's largest generator of plastic waste (Tiseo, 2021). In 2018, we recycled 8.7% of our plastics. I hope we can continue to discover better ways of reducing our waste footprint and continue to minimize the damage we do to our ecosystem. 

Sources:

Lithner: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11356-011-0663-5#citeas

Tiseo: https://www.statista.com/topics/5127/plastic-waste-in-the-united-states/#dossierKeyfigures

Transitioning from BPA to BPS

 Hey All-

This week has felt exhausting. One of my classes is done November 18th and has required a lot of studying which has taken time from my research. I have a lot more research to do for my project before the semester is over so my rough draft is ROUGH. 

One of the things I've been looking at are the alternatives to Bisphenol A (BPA) and how they can still leak chemicals that have estrogenic activity. As we continue to move away from BPA by using other chemicals like Bisphenol S (BPS), we basically haven't solved the issue, we've bandaged it. Companies like plastics because of the durability and low cost but don't seem to see the long term effects of plastics whether that's health related or detrimental to the environment. Below is a table from the Environmental Protection Agency that outlines how much plastic is generated, how much is recycled and what ends up in the landfill.

 

Data provided by: https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/plastics-material-specific-data

Busy Week!

 Hey All-

This semester has felt incredibly busy! I was able to pick up the test kits from the lab to complete the hands on portion of my project which I'm really looking forward to. Hoping I will get some results to better understand the effects that UV rays will have on chemical leeching. I'm also wrapping up my last semester at Phoenix College which feels bittersweet. I didn't know when I started back at school I would become a Biology major but I'm grateful for the opportunity this program provides. I registered for Spring 2022 classes at ASU West and am really looking forward to this new transition. 

These are the items I'll be testing for BPA...

Variables in Experiment

 Hey All-

Hope your week is going well! I've been taking most of the week to study for my Organic Chemistry Midterm. It's been a lot to digest and not really my strongest subject! 

I've looked at bit more at how I will run my experiment and decided I'll be using UV rays (sunlight) to determine if plastics will leech BPA chemicals while in direct sunlight. I'll test each item prior to placing it in the sun, then leave it in direct sunlight for several weeks before testing it again to see if BPA leached from the item. I chose to use UV Rays as the independent variable to test whether or not it has a prominent effect on chemical leaching. I also recently found a tracker that tells how much UV exposure Phoenix gets on any given day so I can include that in my results as well. I attached a screenshot of what it looks like:

(Source: https://s.theweathernetwork.com/us/forecasts/uv/arizona/phoenix)