Sunday, July 18, 2021
By:
Week 7 is in the books, and I have to say — it was hard thinking of a title for this week. I regret setting a naming convention of three alliterative topics for my blog posts! Oh well, hindsight is 20/20.
After last week’s exhausting (and exciting!) intensity, this week was a bit more relaxed. I was working on a couple projects, but without immediate deadlines. Later in the week, most of the others in the office were at the NIIMBL National Meeting. I saw some pictures of everyone together in person — it made me jealous, but in a good way.
After receiving some big feedback from our editors on the communications piece I drafted, Zara and I met to think about next steps and how to navigate that feedback. The feedback we received was pretty substantial, and we felt that we had the grounds to push back a little to try and compromise on the article’s direction. Learning how to take feedback is important, but so is knowing when to advocate for yourself. I was lucky to have Zara on the same page that I was! Resilience is SO important in this process.
Because most of the office was at the NIIMBL meeting, I was in charge of taking notes for one of our inter-agency meetings. Whew — trying to keep up with everyone’s updates was a hard task! But it also showed me how much I’ve learned over the course of the past seven weeks: I’m starting to recognize familiar acronyms automatically, and I know what grant competitions or education and workforce development efforts are underway.
On Thursday, Dr. Crystal Bailey, the Head of Career Programs at AIP, led a resume writing workshop for the SPS intern cohort. I thought I knew everything there was to know about resume writing — I was so wrong! We brainstormed different ways of approaching a resume in breakout rooms, and I learned a lot about highlighting important and relevant information and skills on my resume.
In the Office of Advanced Manufacturing, we are eagerly awaiting the reconciliation of the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, which passed the Senate, with its counterpart bills in the House. A lot of my work this summer has been focused on understanding the U.S. ICA legislation, and I’m both excited and nervous to learn what will change before it (hopefully) becomes law.
Cheers,
Casey Roepke (she/her)