Hola y bienvenido a mis pensamientos finales sobre mi verano en Costa Rica. Este verano fue un experiencia increÃble en muchas maneras como mi tiempo en el hospital y durante los fines de semana alrededor el paÃs. Entonces…
Well I won’t do the entire entry in Spanish for your sake, my readers. But, nonetheless, hello and welcome to my final thoughts about my Costa Rican summer. It’s been an incredible experience in a bunch of ways like my time in the hospital and during my weekend trips.
Earlier today, I officially wrapped up the summer with my Final Presentation. I think it went well and I was happy to be able to show off what I have been doing the whole summer. It was nice especially since my 3D prints came in and I had my finalized low fidelity prototype to be able to show to Dr. Bogantes and the professors.
Beyond that, I’ve been hanging out with the rest of the Costa Rican crew as well as the UCR students. We’ve got lunch plans tomorrow and we went for Hot Pot last night. Much like Chinatown, I let Rei and Apple order and got to try a bunch of things since it was my second time ever trying it.
But, beyond all of that, it’s time for the obligatory reflection upon the whole summer. At the beginning, I had three main goals – 1) learning how to work in a clinical setting, 2) how to communicate the same information to different user groups, and 3) some new Spanish vocabulary. If you couldn’t tell from the the beginning of the post, I feel much more confident in my Spanish since I’ve gotten to use it basically every day. I also feel better with the medical terminology and being able to think on the fly for words that don’t have a direct translation, so that I can still follow the conversation. As for communication with different user groups, due to the nature of my project, I was mostly talking with medical professionals, so there wasn’t as wide of a range. But that’s okay as this goal meshed with the last one, since there was a variety of English and Spanish conversations with the clinicians. It truly tested my vocab and the ability to adapt mid sentence as the situation needed it. As for that first goal, I feel much more confident in working in a clinical setting from patient consultation rooms to ORs to even the cadaver labs. I think it was so beneficial to actually see how these spaces work, since as an engineer, it’s useful to know where your device will be used. I got to see so many different things and I know I’ll take this experience with me not only into my grad classes, but with me into my career.
I’d say that I’ll see you back on this blog next week, but my time here is coming to a close. I’m catching my flight on Saturday back to Atlanta and then I have a week before moving on out to Texas. Wish me luck for all the long travel days ahead, mostly for the 4:30am drive to the airport, long layover, and the 12 hour drive that awaits me! I can’t wait to see what the next semester will bring, but I know it will be it’s own kind of adventure. Pura vida y adiós!