My name is Jing and I am a recent postgraduate. I was looking for a job in academia but was unsure. I feel honoured and lucky to have met Professor Campbell and he is the one who suggested to go for this PESS internship. I am glad that I listened to his advice and the time working as an intern at PESS and Lero confirmed my interest in academia as my future career.
My main responsibility in this internship is to create a systematic review on the effectiveness of video gaming intervention on anxiety. Creating a systematic review is a new experience for me. To describe them in two words, it will be ‘Challenging’ and ‘Fun’. In this two-month internship duration, I learnt the technique of creating systematic review using PRISMA, learnt to use the Boolean operator in search engine, discovered Rayyan for data screening and extraction and the best thing was combining two theories and created a diagram to let the future reader to have a better understanding on that theory.
It is extremely fascinating to know that individuals can use video gaming as an element of attentional bias modification to induce focused distraction and increase the individual’s cognitive load to achieve the effect of anxiety relief immediately. All those little things are like little milestones that will help me to move forward in my future career, and I would like to share the credit with my colleagues in the PESS and Lero departments, especially Mark, Adam Toth and Rob McIlroy. Thank you so much for the guidance and being so supportive throughout these two months.
Additionally, I am given the chance to meet new people in the department, and experience lab work using VR and stimulation driving for their research purposes, which is pretty exciting. A two-month internship feels too short for me and I feel like I have so much more to learn from everyone in that department.
For those that looking for a learning ground in academia, I will definitely recommend PESS internship in UL. And my piece of tiny advice is to be brave, stepping out of your comfort zone and embrace every possibility in your life. I never regret making my decision to pursue my studies in Ireland. There is so much opportunity and I am glad it led me here. So many good memories and so much growth, I hope I can have the chance to work again at Lero.
Jing Hui Ng (Jing), PESS intern, Lero UL
Contact: jinghui98ie@gmail.com LinkedIn
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