Sunday, July 16, 2023
By:
~Song of the Week~ “Together Forever” by Rick Astley
I realize how the title of this week’s blog might sound, conveying emotions of sadness due to the approaching closure of the internship. But I’m here to persuade you from feeling this way about my current state of mind, and I’d like you to shape your perspective of the implications of such a title. Yes, it’s disheartening to know that the end is certainly nigh, but it’s encouraging to realize that I had the chance to take part in such a developmental and impactful experience. Realizing how close we are to the end allows us to reflect on how far we’ve come, and I am truly grateful to have been able to take advantage of the opportunities this internship provided and will continue to provide for the next few weeks. And speaking of reflection, let’s reflect on this past week!
On Monday, I spent a good portion of my workday finalizing the spreadsheets, graphs, and graph images for the APS website. Such a process involves the tedious checking of each spreadsheet to ensure they are ready to be uploaded. This process will be continued throughout the week with the help of my mentor, and we are aiming to be finished by next week with this main part of the internship! In addition, I worked to prepare for an upcoming Thursday marketing meeting regarding the infographic project. We are beginning to consider the layout of such an infographic in more detail, where we are asking ourselves questions such as what information we’d like to include, what stories we’d like to present, and how many infographics we want to create. My mentor and I discussed the creation of an informal presentation for the meeting on Thursday with the marketing team, which will help let them know our vision, the types of data we have, and what stories we could tell from the different data sets. My mentor made sure to point out that the marketing team will create the visuals of the infographics while we help to provide the data. I’m excited to continue working on distributing this type of educational-based information to the public, even though everything will be finalized after the internship concludes! The APS interns also had the chance to virtually meet with the APS News and Career team, where Elizabeth Boatman and Taryn MacKinney provided great insights and advice during the meeting. Monday evening did not entail an intern activity, and I recharged for the upcoming day by watching some TV shows in the dorm.
The following day involved similar types of work on my end, where we focused more on the types of data we’d like to present to the marketing team. Specifically, we are looking at creating infographics on the topics of gender, racial, and ethnic data for U.S. institutions. In continuation of the previous week, I am still finalizing the update of the Top Educators list for the website. I’ll have to say that the 2021 Education and Diversity intern (Zeynep Tuna) has helped to make my life much easier due to a Top Educators instructional document they created! The APS Interns met with Sarah Monk from APS Membership to gain even more career-based insight, and we had great conversations about our future aspirations post-graduation. Tuesday evening featured another lazy period of time due to the hectic nature of the day, but I’m sure more intern activities will come about later in the week! (Since I’m writing this from a future perspective, I know that activities will happen. But let’s just pretend like I don’t know for the sake of drama!)
Wednesday was a great day this week, and not just because the APS interns had a wonderful meeting with the Careers team. July 12th marked Siena’s (my girlfriend, if you might be reading this blog first for some odd reason) 21st birthday!!! It was so nice to be able to celebrate an early birthday with her this past weekend, and it’s been so special to be able to celebrate three birthdays with her since we’ve been together! In addition to such festivities, I was able to finalize the marketing presentation for Thursday with my mentor. I was admittedly a bit anxious to present this information, but my mentor helped to walk me through what it is we are trying to convey to the team. Something my parents always told me was that being nervous is actually a good thing, signifying the fact that you care about what you are doing. If my nervousness is any indication of my wanting to see this project come to fruition, I’ll take it! In contrast to the activity-free past few evenings, a group of interns returned to the Potomac to once again paddle its treacherous waters. We decided to explore in the direction opposite to our last kayaking adventure, and we made it all the way to the Lincoln Memorial! Despite the beaming sun overhead, we had a great time listening to music ranging from Pirates of the Caribbean to Taylor Swift.
On Thursday, many of the interns went to the ACP building for both work and a “Phone Videography Workshop” where we learned about the sense of creativity one can bring into the realm of photography. The marketing meeting with Angeliki Frango and Emma Ferraiuolo was splendid! Both my mentor and I were able to relate the vision for these infographics, and the team shared wonderful ideas and feedback. We discussed the ways in which these infographics could be made, and they provided current examples of several infographics from other organizations to provide different ideas. Tomorrow, I will have another meeting with the past mentors of the Education and Diversity intern role to update the group on my progress. I spent the rest of the workday finalizing my spreadsheet and graph uploading efforts, and I traveled back on the metro with a few interns. The interns organized a potluck for Thursday night, where the theme of the potluck was foods we had at home/loved growing up. Due to my southern background, I had to bring a staple of Tennessee: cornbread. I am admittedly not the best cook out there, but I think I did a half-decent job with my dish (cornbread isn’t too difficult to make, but let’s not take that into account). The night was quite a culinary experience!
Friday began with a continuation of my STEM analysis work. What, you thought I had forgotten that was something I intended to carry on with? Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve written about this work, and I haven’t made too many strides due to the different types of projects I’ve been working on. To continue this analysis, I was able to create additional tables and graphs that help to provide a better understanding of the ways in which the new STEM definition affected the distribution of gender through Bachelor, Master’s, and Ph.D. degrees. Soon after, I met with the past mentors to review the progress I had made since our last meeting in June. We spent a large chunk of time reviewing the uploaded spreadsheets and making comments and recommendations before they were completely finalized. Regarding my STEM analysis, the group was definitely interested in the trends I had gathered from the data. I’ll be carrying out more work over the next several weeks to provide more understanding of the numbers and trends we are seeing. During the meeting, we also discussed the different types of data we’d like to see included in the infographics in addition to the time frame of the infographic release. I gained a lot of insight and perspective from this meeting, and I’m looking forward to talking with the group again before the end of the internship! Friday night involved a game night session that I had been talking with Hannah (the Physics Today Science Writing intern) to help organize. We had a wonderful time playing both Super Smash Bros and the update for Mario Kart 8, and let’s just say that I’m a bit more confident in my Super Smash Bros-playing capabilities after this evening. I went to bed with a full stomach from the goodness that is Chipotle and ended the week on a satisfied note. Oh, and I saw the most beautiful double rainbow!
Similar to the past several weeks of the internship, the weekend went by much faster than anticipated. The interns put on a fun Barbie and Oppenheimer-themed get-together Saturday night in anticipation of the release of both movies next week, and everyone showed up well-dressed for the occasion! Sunday took on its typical role of being a relaxing recharge for the end of the week and the beginning of the next. It’s crazy to think that we only have a few more weekends with everyone, but I know that we’ll make the most of it while we can!
Au revoir Week 7!
Devin Kodsi