Name: Aditi Parikh
Class Year: 2020
Major: Psychology
Hometown: Mumbai, India

Internship Organization: UC Berkeley Language and Cognitive Development Lab
Job Title: Research Intern
Location: Berkeley, Calif.

What’s happening at your internship?

Currently, we are in the last two weeks in my internship. The project I am working on involves learning about how children develop selective attention and the changes that their social environment plays on the way their brain develops. The project is exciting and it is interesting to interact with new people everyday and explore Berkeley and its surroundings!

Why did you apply for this internship?

As a psychology major, I am very interested in doing research and eventually grad school. This seemed like the perfect internship in that respect. It is also nice to experience being in a big college like Berkeley and work with people who have very similar interests as me. The lab also researches topics I care about such as looking at brain development for bilinguals and attention styles. The lab also has a very supportive and nurturing environment that encourages all its members to learn and succeed.

What has been your favorite part of this internship?

The internship has been an eye-opening experience for me academically. Each week, we would have reading groups with all the members of the lab in which one of the grad students would pick out papers for everyone to read and discuss. The papers ranged from topics relating to the research being done by the lab to general ethical and novel debates that are ongoing in the field of research. This experience enabled me to learn about topics that are often not discussed in a typical classroom because its relevance to practical and real-life experiences. It was also interesting to hear the view points of people with different experience levels, such as professors who have spent years working in research, as well as interns who have barely spent any time working the lab environment. I am grateful to have had this wonderful experience

Can you give us three adjectives and three nouns that describe your internship experience?

Adjectives: Interesting, dynamic, transformative
Nouns: cute kids, eye tracking, new horizons