TAMUT students attended the Tarleton Pathway Symposium based on their class success and the ELC Showcase. The ELC was Texas A&M University-Texarkana Experiential Learning Course Showcase. The showcase allowed students to take what they learned in the classroom and apply it to research projects or in my case internships. The experiential learning took place with MCOM’s editing and design classes which turned into an internship with ALT magazine.
By winning second place at the ELC showcase, it opened the door to get invited to Tarleton where the experiential learning and was applied to research. Tarleton Pathway Symposium was a casual competition among many other competitors throughout the A&M University systems. The project did not exactly fit into the theme of the symposium. However, it was still a new and experience.
Entering the conference area, we noticed the abundance of the color purple. Purple is their school color, and Thursday is their spirit day where everyone wears purple. Lucky for us, the conference was on Thursday. We continued through to check-in where the students are given a name tag and gift bag. After check-in, the presentations begin almost immediately, with Sydney Steed starting in the first round as she presented her experiential learning in teaching. Lara Jolly and Alisa Robinson presented their examination of “the reproducibility of a shell-less culture vessel for chicken embryos.” They even had a video they played alongside the poster, which created some excitement with it. I missed attending Gabby Thompson presentation, but if you were not in the room when the presentation session started then you couldn’t enter until it ended, however, I heard she done exceptionally well. Jonathan Nonmacher presented his internship with Tri-State Iron and Metal in session 2. Esther Pippins did her poster presentation when I was doing my oral presentation. It was fun watching TAMUT students rally behind each other as their sessions came up. There were four sessions in total with Hollis Thompson and me being in session 4 of the oral presentation which ended up being on Friday.
Since I presented in the oral sessions, I created a Powerpoint to help me navigate my 12-minute presentation. I was nervous. After seeing all the other competitors, self-doubt was prevalent. I made it through the presentation feeling relieved that it was over. Hollis Thompson followed my presentation with a discussion about the four loves as told through Ouran Highschool Host Club. Our round ended, and we were later notified that Hollis Thompson and Jonathan Nonmacher both placed second in their sessions, so congratulations to them. After the long two-day event we began the ride home. Tarleton A&M is about four and a half hours from Texarkana A&M. Although, I had never attended anything like this in my life and I found it thrilling.
