- Please provide a brief description of your STEP Signature Project. Write two or three sentences describing the main activities your STEP Signature Project entailed.
For my STEP signature project, I conducted undergraduate research for my senior honors thesis. My summer was mostly spent doing a literature review and figuring out which sources to use for my project, as well as submitting my proposal to the IRB for social and behavioral sciences at OSU. I also met with my advisor and created a timeline for the continuation of my project into the fall, as well as a method for data collection (participant observation and interviews).
- What about your understanding of yourself, your assumptions, or your view of the world changed/transformed while completing your STEP Signature Project? Write one or two paragraphs to describe the change or transformation that took place.
My understanding of myself and my assumptions changed significantly. My research is on eating disorders and cultural environments, and I had always learned about these disorders in a biomedical context. From the first time I was introduced to these concepts, they were in clean and neat diagnoses (bulimia, anorexia nervosa, etc.). However, doing this research opened my eyes to the socio-cultural manifestation of disordered eating. This experience definitely exposed me to the ways disordered eating is being conceptualized in different academic fields. My literature review was interdisciplinary, with a variety of sources providing multiple frameworks for understanding this complex issue. It allowed me to be more aware of the ways that these diseases manifest in daily life and the underlying cultural atmospheres that influence the development of these diseases.
3. What events, interactions, relationships, or activities during your STEP Signature Project led to the change/transformation that you discussed in #2, and how did those affect you? Write three or four paragraphs describing the key aspects of your experiences completing your STEP Signature Project that led to this change/transformation.
The primary event that led to the change above was the literature review and recruitment of participants for my project. In exposing myself to a wide variety of theoretical frameworks and interpretations, I learned that the way I previously learned about disordered eating/eating disorders was not sufficient for their current cultural manifestation. For example, in addition to psychological/biological frameworks for understanding eating disorders, I also looked into a feminist-cultural framework that helped to frame the demographics, cultural position, and physical manifestation of eating disorders in a largely female population.
The other aspect of this experience was attempting to find participants who would be willing to speak with me about their experiences with disordered eating behaviors. While I anticipated this being one of the most challenging aspects of the project, I was unfortunately surprised to find that many people I knew were suffering from some form of disordered eating. It certainly helped the research to be able to connect with young women around my age who struggle with this, and talking with them helped me to understand why this is such a problem in my demographic. It also helped me understand that many people are struggling with mental health situations behind the scenes that no one may know about.
Additionally, working on this project has given me a newfound respect for scholars that commit to doing research as a career. I do not have an interest in academia, or pursuing a career that involves this type of research. It helped to solidify my career trajectory in many ways; while I am interested in epidemiology, healthcare, and public health, I do not envision myself pursuing a future as a medical anthropologist, though their work is extremely important to my field of interest.
- Why is this change/transformation significant or valuable for your life? Write one or two paragraphs discussing why this change or development matters and/or relates to your academic, personal, and/or professional goals and future plans
. This transformative experience has been significant to my life in many ways. For starters, I had never embarked on such a research project of my own before. While I had been involved in various projects in the past, this was an entirely different endeavor. Furthermore, I learned about multiple theoretical angles through which to view something as complex as disordered eating, which is often a biomedically framed illness. Understanding the cultural and sociological frameworks was invaluable in forming my understanding of how these behaviors manifest in individuals’ daily lives. Additionally, doing this research helped to solidify my career path. Though I won’t be pursuing anthropology or medical anthropology at a higher level, I would like to work in some form of healthcare.