Name: Emily Saks
Class Year: 2021
Major: Psychology, Biology
Hometown: Piscataway ,N.J.
Internship Organization: Swarthmore College
Job Title: Research Assistant
Endowed Internship Funding Award: Jean Sovatkin Picker Fund
Location: Swarthmore
What is your internship?
I’m a rising senior currently working as a research assistant with a professor of psychology at Swarthmore College. Our research is in political psychology, and we study the psychological nature of political ideology, with a focus on characterizing liberalism. My internship is now being conducted remotely, due to COVID-19, but would have been conducted in person otherwise.
What kinds of things do you do as part of your internship?
I am directly involved in the process of planning, executing, and analyzing the results of our experiments. The skills that I use in my work include scientific writing, data analysis in R, and reading/analysis of scientific journal articles. I also have gained exposure to open science practices, since we register our experiments and planned statistical analyses on an open science website prior to carrying out the experiment. I meet with the professor/mentor every week to discuss progress on the goals we set and to discuss plans for experiments.
Why did you seek out this internship?
I fell in love with psychology after only having taken the introduction-level course and specifically was interested in research in psychology. My research interests lie in political psychology—the factors that contribute to political polarization and the formation of political identity. As a result, I searched for professors who study what I’m interested in and who were willing to take a student into their lab for the summer. I knew that I wanted to spend my summer involved in research in preparation for my senior year and senior thesis. This summer is a great time to spend gaining experience and improving my research-related skills.
What about your experience has been most valuable?
I’ve received great mentorship from my supervisor. I mentioned to him that I’m interested in applying to graduate school in psychology, and he happily gives me advice and sends me resources related to that. In addition, he has discussed with me possible opportunities for professional growth. In general, I simply enjoy the research that I have been involved in and appreciate the opportunity I have to play an active role in it.
How has being a student Bryn Mawr College contributed to your internship experience?
Bryn Mawr supports students’ summer internships with funding, and that funding helped me to participate in my internship. Throughout my years at BMC, I’ve definitely learned to advocate more for myself and be more assertive. I came into college without any knowledge about internships or resumes but used the resources available in the Career and Civic Engagement Center to learn the basics. I used all those skills in searching for and securing my internship.
Visit the Summer 2020 Internships page to read more student stories.