Reflection from the Summer

August 28th, 2010

This summer has been quite an experience.  Living halfway across the country from everyone I know helped me to grow as a person, while the research opened my eyes to what graduate school may be like.  I learned that I'd rather stay in the Midwest when I go to grad school, closer to my family and friends.  The large distance was hard on me, and I feel like even staying in the Midwest would give me some peace of mind, knowing that family or friends were only a few hours away.  I also learned that, although I enjoyed seismology, I may want to explore a career path that involves more geology.  I guess I'll have to see what I can figure out. 

Although I was unable to get as far as Elizabeth had originally planned, I was very happy with how far I got.  Elizabeth let me know that she had been very ambitious when planning our project for the summer, and that although I didn't finish the project, I actually got farther than she originally expected me to.  I basically achieved every goal I set out to, except my last goal, which involved analyzing the tremor and earthquakes for spatial and temporal patterns.  This was by far the most ambitious of the goals I had set, so although I was unable to achieve it, I'm still pleased with the other goals I accomplished.  I think one reason we didn't completely finish the project was some of the issues we were having with the code I was writing.  Little errors kept occurring, but all those little errors ended up taking a lot of time out of our schedule.  These errors taught me that sometimes things don't go your way, but you have to keep pushing through to get as far as you can.  I feel like graduate school is going to involve a lot of this - getting as much done as I can on my projects, while pushing through little errors.  I also understand that graduate school will be more independent than undergraduate, something I got a taste of this summer.

This summer taught me more than I ever expected it to - in and out of the research room.  It was invaluable experience, something that helped me grow, while giving me the opportunity to live in a region of the country I never had before.  I appreciate it so much, and would say to anyone even considering it to give it a try.