S-STEM/TRAIN Scholar Christopher Livingston's Blog

My online presence currently consists of an old unused social media account, an online art gallery to showcase my paintings, and Slack to communicate at work. We use it as an instant messaging app, and it seems to work well. Our next assignment is to create a LinkedIn profile, so I will soon have that to add to my presence. I've had a Linked In profile twice before but I never really used it, maybe this time will be different though. This amount is a bit higher than my desired amount would be, but it should be manageable. I'll admit though that I'm notorious for neglecting online profiles after I make them. I think I might be open to having a social media account if I ever make any sort of crafts to sell online, possibly something that combines my artistic side and my biology side, it would be completely product/art focused though.

Prompt: What is my current on-line presence? My online presence is currently in decline by choice, in contrast to most others who are actively adding to theirs. I was very active online in the early days of social media (i.e. friendster and Myspace), but I have become more private/introverted and less interested in exposing parts of my life to the public as I've gotten older. Currently I have two social media accounts, the first is my original Myspace page, which has not been accessed in ~5 years; the second is my DeviantArt page, an online gallery of my paintings under a  handle of my choosing, I'm merely an anonymous artist. I know that this may be hard for others to understand, after all, during the last decade we've witnessed a mass migration of people to online spaces and it is fast becoming less common to not be a part of the online discussion. As I mentioned earlier, I was active in the early days of social media and as such I got the chance to live that life before ...

 1. What are your professional goals, 1 year, 5 years and 10 years into the future? What will accomplishing these goals let you do? How will accomplishing these goals impact those around you and what will it make possible for those in your community?      I think that my professional goals are pretty basic and they won't change over the course of the next 10 years. My goal professionally is to be in a stable career that is low-stress and involves the thing that I love most, plants. That may take a masters degree, but I'm still trying to figure that out. I'm currently looking at working in a herbarium, so in order to get there I need to experience an internship with one or more herbariums, and luckily I already have one lined up for the summer. There are zero people who will be impacted by any of my decisions as usual. As far as my community impact, I'm not sure there will be an impact to my immediate community, however, the scientific community might benefit from ...

 1. What did you know about your field 3 years ago, and what have you learned about that has 'wowed' you? (Supplemental questions: What did you used to think was an advanced topic in your subject, and what do you think is now? What was the experience that you feel you learned the most from?) 2. What do you want to learn about over the next 3 years? (Is it scientific or personal? Why do you want to learn it? How do you plan on developing this knowledge?) Well, I wish I could say that I know what my field is, but the truth is that I still have no idea what I'm doing with myself, or where I'm going. There just aren't enough classes offered that speak to my interests in plant biology. So, based on that I don't think I can actually answer these questions as they are. I will try to answer these questions more broadly about my educational experience, however. Three years ago I was just coming back to school from a "career" in retail management. I remem...

  1.      Who are you grateful for who has helped you get to where you are today? (What was your situation? how did they help you? How did that help impact you in the moment and how has it led to where you are today? If you have a picture you'd like to share please do so with their permission.) I am grateful for my mother who encouraged me to follow my interests with a biology degree instead of pursuing an accounting degree, which she knew would lead to my eventual displeasure. I had just decided to leave my job as a retail store manager and come back to school, I had everything figured out. I told my mother that I would be going back to school for accounting, and she asked me why I didn’t go for something that would interest me more, I ended up changing my major to biology after that. The simple question she asked helped me to reevaluate why I was going back to school, and to understand that if I was going to take the risk of going back to school, it may as w...

 I just finished taking my last final, thank goodness that is over! This has been an interesting semester for sure. Although I missed out on in-person activities and meeting new people, I feel as though the STEM class helped to fill that void a bit. It was nice to see familiar faces in a new environment (Zoom lol), and become acquainted with new faces. I'd like to share that the most beneficial part of the STEM class this semester was reading Mindset: The New Psychology Of Success  by Carol S. Dweck, I am certain that it has helped me to understand the "why?" of peoples actions and decision making, and also helps me to understand my own thoughts and practices. I've definitely witnessed a closed-mindset in politics over the past four years, hopefully we can learn from our mistakes as a country and heal. I hope that each of you reading this will have a wonderful winter season celebrating however you choose (with safety in mind, of course). I look forward to meeting up a...

 This semester was not the same as the ones that came before it. Yes, we did get a preview of what was to come during the Spring, but that was the panic, this semester was the reality... and so is next semester.  I have many things to be grateful for, but sometimes I can't seem to see those things and it is easier to focus on the major stressors in life as the only things that are happening. I would say that with the loss of the majority of human contact it became easier to only focus on the stress. If we are our own worst critics, then the humans that we come into contact with, our friends, family, lovers, etc., must be the counterbalance to that oppressive inner voice that tries to pull us down. The anxiety this semester was real, I can't remember a time prior to this when I spent so much time worrying about everything, and there was so little within my power that I could change. To live is to struggle, but this year was a little too over-the-top. I spent a lot of time this ...