What, So What?, Now What?

What? 

During the community service event, I observed many different people from all different kinds of backgrounds come together to serve the community in building a bike for kids. It was really amazing to see such a diverse crowd of people brought together by their love for research. Everyone seemed to be really having fun and making new friends during the event. It was a great way for people to network with other college students from all different kinds of places. Watching everyone laugh and enjoy themselves while serving the community was very enlightening, and seeing the joy on the kids' faces who received the bikes was extremely heartwarming. 

So What?

I did not really learn any new skills or clarify and new interests. I was surprised at the format of the event. I thought that it would be just a bunch of students working as fast as they could to build as many bikes as they could to give to the kids. Instead, the format of games-for-parts was completely different and much more enjoyable than the event that I was expecting. I enjoyed interacting with the other students on a more relaxed level, playing games and conversing rather than just straight up building bikes. I just appreciated the level of diversity of interests from all my group members, and got an appreciation for all the different fields of research that exist.

Now What?

The best way to apply what I learned from the event is to make the best out of every opportunity by interacting with the people around each opportunity. For research, I guess the way I could do this is to focus more on the interactions with the other researchers in my lab and exchange ideas more often. If I could do group activities again, I would not change anything.