Week 1

Person pointing at a calendar on a laptop screen.

Exercise 1.1: Add time on your calendar each week to focus on GRC tasks. (15 min)

Reflect on your overall schedule. Choose one or two time frames each week where you will be able to focus on the exercises. Block off the recommended time on your calendar with a title like “GRC Prep” or something meaningful to you.

Calendars are a great tool, but life is life, and unexpected things happen that require us to change our schedule. If the original time you allocated gets hijacked by experiments, or a hot date, remember to move your GRC Prep time elsewhere on your calendar.

Exercise 1.2: Discover your audience. (30 min)

One way to discover your audience is to put yourself in their shoes. Imagine yourself in an audience for another research talk. What attracts you to listen? Some ideas include:

Why is this research important?
How does it matter to my daily life?
Was there a surprising finding?
What do I need to know about it?
Did I feel magnetic energy or enthusiasm for the presentation?

Write down your answers and refer to them as you begin to develop your GRC script.

Woman reading a letter near a laptop by the window.

Exercise 1.3: Draft the first outline of your GRC script. (15 min)

We haven’t begun talking about your script yet, but it doesn’t mean we aren’t thinking about it. This week, all I want you to do is capture a high-level, bulleted outline of some ideas you may want to include in your GRC talk. Set a timer for 15 minutes, and jot down thoughts as they come to you. Don’t worry about the order; you can massage that aspect later. Just capture the big ideas. See here for suggested prompts.

Group of five kids looking intense and focused.

Exercise 1.4: Launch your GRC Fan Club and/or your GRC mentor

Recruit 3-5 people to be in your fan club and 1-2 mentors. Ask yourself the following questions as you build your GRC support team:

Does s/he/they have 2–3 hours over the next eight weeks to support you?
Do you and the person have an honest relationship where you can say difficult things to one another without fear of retribution?
Does s/he/they believe in you?
Does s/he/they support your participation in the GRC?
Do you look forward to interacting with them?

Speaker Iris Garcia-Pak from UC San Diego presenting.

Exercise 1.5: Watch one GRC presentation. (15 min)

In this exercise, we will observe an actual GRC presentation. Use the GRC Observation Worksheet to evaluate each talk. Click here to access the online form or download the PDF version here.

This week, we watch Iris Garcia-Pak from the University of California at San Diego share her neuroscience on the blood-brain barrier. Iris won first place with her GRC talk The Brain: An Exclusive VIP Club.

Tracking your progress

I recommend that you track your progress as the weeks progress. Whether you use this simple visual aide or have your own method, try to make a habit of stepping back and asking yourself: "What progress have I made this week?"