Goals: Some For Now and Some For Later....

I have always had a hard time making goals for myself. I know what I want the end goal to be, but the little goals along the way don't get too much thought. Truthfully, my biggest issue with goal setting is ensuring the goal is attainable. I am often disappointed with myself for failing to accomplish a specific goal, but when I look back it was almost physically impossible for me to achieve that goal within the constraints I had at the time. This time around I would like to manifest these goals while also setting up a realistic plan for each goal. Here are some of the most important goals I have!

Have a Productive Summer (Next Few Months)

I was recently accepted into the Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) program which aids students from a disadvantaged background or minority community to apply to PhD programs within biomedical research. One of the requirements of the program is conducting 10 weeks of research at a lab over the summer. I am super excited to be doing research, but also nervous to be living on my own for the summer. However, I think this is a great opportunity to work on myself to be more of an independent adult. Here are the steps I am planning to take to ensure I am successful. Within this broader goal, I hope I can be more courageous to ask clarifying questions in the lab, ask for advice from the post-docs, and create a strong relationship with the principal investigator. Further, I would like to be more daring. Daring in the sense that I will challenge myself even if I am scared. These are a few attainable changes/ actions I can do to ensure I have a productive summer that will help me with career development. For personal development, I hope I can break away from my social bubble by socializing more with people and being willing to try new things. Further, if I can sublease a space with a kitchen I would love to try new baking recipes and veggie recipes. I have recently been interested in recreating dishes that normally have meat and making them vegetarian. I grew up eating meat 95% of the time for dinner, so the majority of my favorite meals have meat in them. I decided to be vegetarian about 1 year and a half ago so I have been getting crafty and creative in recreating my favorite childhood dishes to satisfy my cravings. Since cooking is one of my biggest sources of happiness, I hope I can experiment this summer with different dishes and make them my own!

Practice My Adulting (3-5 Years)

It didn't feel like very long ago when I was packing up all my stuff to move into my UCLA dorm. It was the first major shift in my life where I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Strangely enough, I felt prepared enough to feel like everything would be okay. I had been scheduling my own doctor's appointments since freshman year of high school, I had filled out my taxes twice, and I had a job that helped me practice my phone skills. Even after all of this and two years of living far from home, I still feel like there is so much I still do not know about being an adult. My "adulting" skills might just kick in with time, but I would like to learn more about things that will help me in the future. My main goals for finance are understanding how I can get a credit score and how can I have a good one, how do I apply for a loan, and what does it mean to refinance your house? How do you even buy a house? My other main goals have to do with general life issues like how I change a tire or how can I buy healthcare. To find the answer to these questions I think it would be beneficial for me to start investing sooner rather than later. I think if I made a presentation on all these topics and presented it to cousins/friends my age it would help me understand these processes more and also help other people. My main concern is that when the time comes to know how to do all this stuff I will not know where to start. Living with my parents far from me has helped me be more of an independent adult, but there is still so much to learn! But I am determined to have a deeper understanding of these common adulting themes to ensure that I am prepared for my future. I would like to have completed this goal within the next 3-5 years.

Earn My PhD (6-10 years)

When I got to college I had no idea what I wanted to do career-wise. All I knew was that I liked science and I wanted to have a career that offered me the opportunity to collaborate and was constantly changing. I found my answer in the LS7A class I took during my first fall quarter when my professor explained she was doing biomedical research. The idea of being in an ever-changing field while having the opportunity to work with other scientists was one I was super interested in. Fast forward a year to my second fall quarter I joined a lab. Right when I walked into the lab space and I knew I was where I was meant to be. I hope that after graduating with my bachelor's degree I will go straight to a graduate program in life sciences and earn my PhD. I hope that by the time I am 26-27 years old, I will have completed my program and started working in the research field. My biggest obstacle in achieving this goal is figuring out what I want to earn my Ph.D. in. I love biomedical research (relating to cancer and genetic diseases), but I also really like ecology (studying ecosystems and how climate change affects keystone species). Part of me feels like I'll be able to overcome this obstacle once I take more upper-division classes and I'll be able to take classes that are more niche. As part of the MARC program, I have to apply to at least three graduate programs by the end of my senior year, so that part is set. Until then I am trying to gain as much experience as I can at the lab and attending networking events for prospective PhD students. I am also planning on starting to work up a list of possible graduate programs I would like to apply to. When I get into a grad program (fingers crossed) and I finish, I would like to work in the field for a few years before having my lab. My ultimate goal career-wise is to be working within a science field that not only allows me to be economically comfortable, but also happy. As I've gotten older I have realized how valuable my happiness is, and I refuse to submit to a career simply because it pays well. To achieve this, I am going to focus on feeding my passions throughout graduate school and avoiding doing something only because I think it will pay well.