The first goal of my portfolio is to demonstrate that I took initiative during my internship at the South Coast Center. My plan was not to sit back and do the bare minimum of what was required of me, but rather to look for opportunities to make positive changes and the center and put my ideas to action.

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  One example of how I took initiative for Save the Bay was when my internship supervisor Dave offered me the opportunity to write an article for Save the Bay’s Tides Blog.

I chose to share my blog post in my portfolio because it demonstrates an instance where I took a chance and ran with it to produce something really interesting. Because my background is as an undergraduate research assistant for a lab that studies Ciona intestinalis (a species of sea squirt), I decided to combine my lab work experience with my internship and write a sea squirt themed blog post. It discusses the importance of one of Narragansett Bay’s invasive species in genetics research at university laboratories and elsewhere.

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  I also created a PowerPoint presentation to provide some other examples of ways I took initiative by doing various tasks that I was not required to do at my internship. Throughout the semester, I took photos of instances during which I felt I was going above and beyond. I was given numerous opportunities to lend a hand at the South Coast Center, but here are just a few of them: