Friday, July 26, 2013
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This week I made a lot of progress at work and I’m excited to see how my project concludes in the next week or so. I’m working closely with the scientist who will be continuing my project after I leave, and it’s been a great experience. He is incredibly encouraging and has tremendous insight into what I’m working on. He really wants me to learn to think like a scientist and is helping me develop good habits that will come in handy in grad school and during the rest of my career. My current goal is to calculate the reflection coefficient for our potential barrier setup, which involves tying together everything that I’ve been working on this summer. It’s great to see how much I’ve learned – terms and equations that mystified me just a few weeks ago are no big deal now. I feel proud of what I’ve accomplished, and I’m looking forward to continuing my work next week!
I also spent some time this week working on my final presentation, which is coming along well. It’s a good exercise because it helps me clarify my thoughts and think about ways to communicate scientific ideas to others. I feel like I have so much to say and it’s a challenge to pick and choose what’s really important, but it’s also a very rewarding process.
On Sunday, Toni invited all of the interns to her house to watch The Wizard of Oz, which was really special and fun. I’m slowly starting to realize that our time as SPS interns is coming to a close, and it’s nice to be able to spend a time with everyone while we still can. It looks like the rest of the internship is going to be very busy and very fun – stay tuned!
Alexandra Day