My May Project

Week 1

So for my May Project, I’m working at Wash U and at Animal House. I intern in the Wash U psychology department on Mondays and Wednesdays and I’m learning about their research on memory and other neuroscience and psychology-related stuff. Today was my second day and I basically just read some articles and lab reports and highlighted them, then discussed them with the person in charge. I also sat in on a short presentation about optical illusions and tricks in the brain. The interning itself is a little slow, but hopefully it’ll get better as time goes on. I’ve been to Animal House a few times now and it’s a lot of work. I’ve been doing a lot of sweeping, washing carriers, and folding laundry, but we’re allowed to take breaks and play with the cats between cleaning tasks. It’s nice because there are other classmates working at Animal House, so I can talk to them while I work, and it makes the job a lot easier. Last time, Elizabeth and I played with two kittens for a while and it was really nice to just take a break and talk to a friend and play with the cats, who are really cute. They’re super strict there about the routine you have to go through to keep everything clean, and they actually sent me home to change one day because I was wearing shorts. They don’t really tell us all of the rules, and then when one of us does something wrong, they act like we were supposed to know that it was wrong, so it can be frustrating sometimes. At this point, I kind of would rather have an extra month of school instead of doing May Project but hopefully it’ll get better.

Week 2

This week for my May Project was a little bit better. I wasn’t in the memory lab at Wash U this week, which was nice. This week, on Monday, I was in the lab of a professor who focuses mainly on emotion, and she took me out to barbecue for lunch. She was super easy to talk to and really cool, and willing to talk about normal stuff. That is, stuff that isn’t related to emotion and her lab, which was a nice change from the people in the memory lab. We walked to the loop and then she gave me a bunch of surveys about emotion that were interesting to look at and fill out. She also talked about the work that she does, and I met with two of her grad students who told me about their projects. One of her grad students showed me how to use coding to categorize and keep track of facial expressions and body movement. A video of someone talking would play, and you would use different codes when the person showed certain expressions or fidgeted or gestured. On Wednesday, I was in the lab of someone who focused on personality, and I basically just sat in a room with him and his three grad students and talked about their projects. His grad students were so fun and joked around frequently, so I felt much more relaxed in his lab than in the memory lab. It definitely made me realize that I’m much more interested in emotion and personality than I am in memory. After the personality lab, I had to go to a lab meeting with the memory people and it was incredibly boring. The memory grad students aren’t talkative and don’t seem like they’re good friends with each other so the atmosphere is very stiff and slightly awkward. Dr. Roediger, the main person in charge of the memory lab is actually a huge deal in the memory research world and has done a lot of famous studies so it's awesome that I got to meet him. 

At Animal House this week, it was also better. It’s so nice to have friends there to keep me company. This week, Jeremy finished all of his hours so he isn’t working there anymore. Myls is in New York for his brother’s graduation so he won’t be here until next week either. Augie doesn’t work at Animal House anymore so this week it is pretty much just me and Elizabeth, which is fine, but it means there is a lot more work for us to do. They just received some feral kittens, so we get to cuddle with them for about an hour every day. Earlier this week, I helped them wash the kittens in the sink and then towel-dry them, then wrap them up in little towel burritos. The burritos make them feel safe and warm them up, so that eventually they will become more used to humans and also become adoptable. They are absolutely adorable and tiny, and are already showing good progress of warming up to humans. Other than that, I’ve been cleaning a lot of their cat rooms, which usually have about 7 cats in them. This involves scooping litter, cleaning out the food bowls, cleaning and refilling the water bowls, and sweeping the room. We also fold a ton of laundry, clean cat carriers, sweep the whole facility, socialize with the cats, and clean the bottoms of the cat cages. The cats there are all adorable and really sweet, but the people there are a little scary sometimes. They are all older women, except for one or two men, and the frequency of cat-voice usage is insane. There’s always someone talking to a cat, saying in a high-pitched voice, “Well you’re such a good boy, aren’t you?!” Their entire world revolve around cats; I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone there talk about anything that doesn’t relate to cats. One woman told me that she has four cats of her own, as well as two foster cats, and seven foster kittens. That’s thirteen cats. In one house. Honestly, that seems a little crazy to me but maybe that’s normal in the world of cat ladies. One huge perk of working at Animal House is that we get about an hour for lunch every day and there is every type of fast food restaurant imaginable within a two-minute-drive radius of Animal House. And playing with the kittens, of course, is a huge perk, especially at the end of the day when you’re tired from doing so much cleaning. It’s nice to unwind and finish the day by playing with some six-week old kittens. 

So far, I’ve learned a few things. First, that it’s super important for me to choose something that I’m really passionate about in college, because I can already tell that I’m not interested in memory-related psychology. Second, working at Animal House is getting much easier and more enjoyable now that I’ve become used to how they run things and their daily routines. I think May Project is definitely improving for me.

Last Few Days

So for the last few days of May Project, I had two more days at Wash U and one more day at Animal House. I skipped one day of Wash U because I really wasn’t feeling well, but I was able to go to Animal House the next day. On the last day of Animal House, I mostly just played and socialized with cats and kittens. Elizabeth and I got to see some of the shelter’s smallest kittens, only about a week old. We played with some older kittens, then socialized some cats in specific rooms. And we folded laundry, of course. Tomorrow, I have my last day at Wash U and I have no idea what they have planned for me, but I’m guessing it’s more readings and more discussions. The person in charge of the memory lab really tried to have a specific schedule for me, but the work was extremely repetitive and not very interesting. But, I am grateful that he set up days where I could visit other labs, because that was the best part of the experience. For Animal House, I feel like I was lucky that I got in touch with them because they hardly ever respond to emails or pick up the phone. I highly recommend future students actually visit Animal House to set up their May Project. In general, I was expecting my May Project to be better, but it was fine. I’m happy I got the experiences. 
For my last day at Wash U: So on my last day of the memory lab, I basically just met with each of the five grad students to see what each of them are working on. A lot of them were doing things related to confidence and how that affects memory accuracy, but one student was working on studying people who have insanely good memory. Apparently these people are regular people, but they use a specific method to memorize hundreds of numbers or the order of a full deck of cards. It was a nice way to end the day because she showed me a few videos of people memorizing insane stuff, and she described that she was working on seeing if they're genetically different from other people, or if there is a way to break their memorization streaks. 
That concludes my experiences with May Project this year!