
Research Assistant, Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences
Major: HESP
Minor: Human Development
Class Year: 2022
What was a typical week like in your internship position?
As a research assistant, I was able to work for a graduate student in the HESP program at UMD who was working towards her Ph.D. A typical week in this position was listening to audio files and transcribing them into text grids. I would then further transcribe the file to pinpoint the specific speech sounds of each word.
What do you enjoy most about your current position?
What I enjoyed most about this position was working closely with a graduate student on her research project. I got to meet with her on a weekly basis and learn about the purpose of the study and the contributions that my work added to it. I loved how passionate she was about her work and it showed me what the research side of HESP looked like. I was also able to become proficient in several phonetic softwares.
How did your coursework help you in your internship?
In several of my hearing and speech classes, I was able to learn about specific speech sounds and how a person produces them. Learning about how these speech sounds looked on an audio file made it easier for me when I was transcribing them. I was also able to fully understand the content of the study I was working on which allowed me to have a stronger connection to it.
How did you locate your internship position?
I was able to get this position from a posting sent out by the manager of the lab that I work in at UMD. She was able to provide this opportunity because the person offering it was also a graduate assistant working for the lab.
Advice for students:
The advice that I would give to students is that the more involved you are on/off-campus, the more opportunities that will be presented to you. I was able to find my internship because of my direct connection to the UMD lab that I am a part of. I would recommend also reaching out to lab managers and researchers on campus because they are always looking for assistance in their projects.