Initial Thoughts

June 5th, 2010

The orientation program here is almost coming to a close -- we've had quite a whirlwind of talks, labs, in-field examples, etc. Professors who are very specialized in their field have been here just to show us all the various avenues avaliable to us. Its been pretty interesting to observe the social dynamics of the week, as us interns grew more comfortable with eachother and with the instructors around us. At the moment our minds are all spinning with anticipation. The following is a download of thoughts, expectations, questions, anxieties:

Step 1 for me is to go finish finals at UCSD. I'm the only one of the group who still has school to think about, though I haven't been thinking about it much... I'm fairly confident that my preparation in the weeks before will set me up for a smooth finish (we'll just have to see). I also have some social goals, saying goodbye to those fellow seniors who are graduating on time.

Then its up to the bay area. I understand that my main advisor, Simon Klemperer, will be out of town for the first couple weeks (Kelsey is stealing him from me). That being said, I will be meeting my co-advisor, Darcy McPhee, and other mentors at the USGS. I'm really not sure what that will entail, what the work will be, what my role will be, etc. I do know directions to the USGS office. That's a good start. I also know that this program has been going awhile, and IRIS interns have been coming back year after year. Looking at their work and blogs gives me some idea of where my summer will go, but also just means the bar has been set (I will be aiming to raise it).

I also understand there's another Stanford student who will be working on the same project... I'm quite curious as to what our interaction will be. Will we be working together the entire time? What's his/her background? Will there be any way I can share what I've seen this week, or will he/she be helping me around?

There's alot I want to learn -- I hope to buff up my programming / matlab skills substantially. I'll also admit I'm pretty interested just in the electronics and process of how the equipment works. I'm ready to get hands on and finally apply what I've been learning about in physics, electronics, and geophys. My goal for the summer is to ask as many questions as possible, and get involved with as much as possible. In the past this mindset has even been a detriment to actual productivity on any one single topic. But how can someone be content with only one piece of the puzzle?! In general I prefer to thoroughly understand something (in this case, the equipment, data collection and processing, general theory and principles, etc) before jumping right into working with the pieces. Am I capable of understanding all of this? Is that mindset reasonable for "big-time" projects? I guess there's only way to find out, and that's to show up on the USGS front door in about a week.

Gotta run for now, career panel is starting! ~Daniel