All my life there has always been a structure to everything that I did. All this structure I was exposed to and taught to follow made me exceptionally comfortable in being told what to do, when to do it, and how to do things. However, my comfort with following directions led my spark of creativity and curiosity to grow dull. And this year, I realized that being such a stringent direction follower even led me to stray away from developing my own interests and passions.

Admittedly, I applied to PRYDE thinking it would provide me with a very structured experience into research. I assumed my placement into a lab also came with concrete direction and information as to what I would be doing and how I could complete every task asked of me. However, my experience has been the complete opposite. At first that made me uncomfortable. But by my third month of being a PRYDE scholar I realized that this experience has helped me learn to channel my creativity and curiosity, which are both instrumental in doing field research. My experience in the Brainsets and K-12 Academic Achievement Lab with Dr. De Rosa has also been teaching me not to run from discomfort but instead to transform it into a growth opportunity.

The most extraordinary part about being a PRYDE Scholar is that I have TWO spaces in which such experiences of creativity, curiosity, and growth opportunities are generated: the lab and the PRYDE seminar course. In the lab I am not only making the ideas of others come to life but spawning and sharing ideas of my own. I have aided in brain storming intervention activities to do in the classrooms at Syracuse Science Academy and I have also played a role in bringing those interventions to life! I am a true contributor to the project and I have to say it feels AMAZING. Truly having a hand in what I’m working on has ignited a sense of inventiveness that I have never felt myself exercise to such great capacity. However, this inventiveness that started in the lab translated to my work in the classroom.

I was able to apply this creativity to an assignment where we had to make a comic strip of a research article. When I first heard of this assignment at the very beginning of the course I deeply dreaded the fact that it had to be done. At that point in time, I truly believed that I held no ounce of creativity. However, after some time in my lab I knew that not to be true. Overall, the assignment was still fairly difficult but my openness to this creative assignment led me to create something I am extremely proud of!

All in all, PRYDE has been a source of finding MY own creativity. I hope moving forward I can continue to develop my interests and passions. My curiosity has been sparked once again and I know through this program I will gain experiences that will teach me how to ask investigable questions. I know they say curiosity killed the cat … but that is what fuels a researcher!