Cambria Snyder

 

Behind me is a green wall in the Adele H. Stamp Student Union Center for Student Life. I have only ever seen green walls online so seeing one in person was a total geek moment for me. It was such a beautiful thing to experience and the air in that area was so fresh and cool!

    Greetings from Garrett County! - phew what a haul College Park was! All the mileage was definitely worth it for the experience and knowledge that I gained from the Campus Residency and Research tour. Before I journeyed to College Park my week began at Garrett College where the State FFA convention was underway. My mentor Willie and I assisted in the forestry portion of the competition. 

FFA students from across that state that competed in the forestry competition.

    The part of the tour that inspired me the most was Emily Woerner’s water quality lab. Collecting and analyzing water for microbial growth was so intriguing to me. Throughout my college career I’ve taken many science-related courses and of those microbiology was by far my favorite. Through the course, I really enjoyed working in a lab and growing all sorts of bacteria. For this lab, we collected water from a stream on campus, filtered it, and then plated the bacteria we collected on a petri dish. We were able to successfully grow e.coli. This lab was a fun avenue for me to get back into a lab setting and grow bacteria. Before this lab I had never taken a water sample and grown bacteria from it; so now I am curious about the microbial activity in other sources of water.

A small portion of me and my fellow interns during the water quality lab with Emily Woerner. Pictured from left to right is Sam, Raven, Solomon, Andrea, Kaity, Bridget, Ciera, and I. 

     I found Myles Alexander’s workshop to be the most inspiring to me. He really was able to put in perspective that it doesn't matter who you are, leadership traits are present within you. A leader isn’t this great, perfect, strong person; leaders are all of us. We all exhibit unique traits that whenever we are thrown into situations where leadership is required those traits are then amplified. Myles’s ten-value note card game was very humbling for me. Writing down ten values that hold priority in my life and then watching them one by one get “taken” from me until I was down to three core values was self-effacing. That activity was definitely a time for self-reflection for me and helped me realize what values are actually important and define the person I am, and the person I’m becoming. Antonio Silas brought great insight and perspective on the concept of networking. Being the shy person I am, I’m never the person to go out of my way to introduce myself to a group or another individual. It was great to hear from him and that even though I am a shy individual, I still bring useful quality traits to the table. Leadership can be expressed in different styles and that's not always being the bold and outspoken individual. Introverted people can have their own style of leadership. Leadership comes in many forms and one of the styles can just the be calm and guidance you bring to the situation. One thing that I need to improve on during my internship to help me be the leader I aspire to be is building my self-confidence. I feel like a large part of being an effective leader is having self-confidence. It’s definitely an area I need to grow in. 

Until next week friends!

Personally, I am not a huge fan of bugs so I didn't interact with many bugs at the UMD insect zoo. This Vietnamese walking stick was a pretty cool dude though.