Student Work Symposium

The Student Work Symposium was particularly valuable for me this year because I presented a poster. My poster was on a correlational study I did in my research methods class examining the relationship between emotional intelligence and health locus of control. Getting to present a poster in a setting like the student work symposium was really helpful because it gave me a chance to practice presenting a poster so that I can know what to expect when I (hopefully) get a chance to present at a conference in the future. The experience was also helpful as a way of becoming familiar with compiling and printing a poster. I am not the most technologically savvy person in the world, so it was nice to have a chance to practice making the poster without as much pressure as I might feel if I was going to present it in a professional setting. Overall, the poster session was pretty quiet and not a huge number of people came to look at my poster, but several people did and most of them asked very interesting questions which I really enjoyed. Unfortunately, I did not get much opportunity to look at many of the other posters because I was busy at my own. I did, however, get a chance to look at a poster about someone’s internship at Hope Alliance, which is an internship I have applied for this summer. I really enjoyed getting to see that poster because it gave me a good idea of what to expect should I have the opportunity to intern at Hope Alliance.
The oral presentation I attended appeared to be focused on sociology and anthropology, although a student in the Biology department presented the talk that most caught my attention about bioethics and Huntington’s disease. One of the things this student focused on was the discussion of whether or not a person might choose to get tested for this (and other genetic disorder). She explained that a simple DNA test could determine whether or not an individual would develop the disorder, but that because there is no cure for the disease such a test would not make a difference in the outcome of one’s diagnosis. She also discussed some of the problems associated with being tested for the disorder. For instance, one’s health insurance company and employer could obtain the results of the test, which might prove problematic if one received a positive diagnosis. It turns out that a law has recently been passed to prevent employers and insurance companies form discriminating against individuals who have been tested for genetic disorders and whose tests were positive.
I found the idea of genetic testing to be particularly intriguing because it made me wonder if I would get tested for genetic disorders if given the opportunity. Ultimately, I think that I would not choose to get tested, especially if the disorder I was getting tested for did not have a cure. Instead I think I would choose to try to live the healthiest life I could and deal with each problem as it came up – just like I do now.