My First Steps Toward Publishing My Work

Publishing my work was a huge dream of mine before graduating. What surprised me about pursuing undergraduate research, however, is that I had to take specific courses to carry out the tasks successfully and at a good pace. I asked every STEM professor on my campus for any opportunities to publish for an academic journal. One of those professors told me that grad schools prefer to see peer-reviewed articles — rather than a senior honors thesis — that could have tripled my chances of being admitted. I did not want to lose hope, so I had no choice but to take on the thesis, even if I did not expect to work with the concepts learned in a course where I received a “C.”

During my summer fellowship on campus…

Dr. Eric Koester of Georgetown University emerged in my notifications and found me as a student writer. Reading about his motivations for starting the Creator Institute may have changed my mind about waiting until I land a full-time job at 30 to create a book. Finding out that he wants to make writing a book affordable for all makes my publishing idea come to life immediately. I never had a community who could help me reach my goals of having field experts recognize my work and not overlook it. Without Dr. Koester or the new mentors and friends that I made at the Creator Institute, I would not be able to make the case in my grad school personal statement.

Currently…

I am a Student Fellow for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Just like switching my college major several times, I changed around the topic of my journalism story several times. I started attending on-campus seminars long before I started writing for New Degree Press. Initially, I hoped to change the way that computer science and engineering should motivate college students. Later on, I switched to writing about health disparities and AI biasing. That is when I found out that my story idea remained too broad while my peers started holding phone interviews. After a few weeks of not receiving any comeback emails, I ended up with EIGHT phone interviews in one week! With all the information I have, I planned on writing a book as an extension of my journal article. This month involved ample primary interviews, and I am now anticipating a slowdown!

In summary…

Aging innovation is across my final few undergraduate projects and it is becoming my new passion. The words about my initial goal of understanding the human brain should still be worth spreading. Speaking of publishing, I’m off to launching my book tentatively titled Inventive Image in July 2020. Wish me some happy writing sessions!