Three Weeks Later...

It's been three weeks since I left Boulder and life back in Michigan is finally settling down.  Classes are going well and are fairly interesting (My Earthquake Seismology class uses the Stien and Wysession book we were givien!).  As for reflections...

My internship was considerably different than I was expecting, though certainly a great experience.  My project looked a lot shallower than most of the projects, which was really nice for me as an engineer as I don't particularly care about the Earth's structure several km down for engineering purposes.  My project was entirely active source, which was the main reason I wanted it.  I'm not particular to the deep stuff.  Near surface geophysics feels more like something I would use in the future either as a full time job or to compliment research.

The largely field-based aspect of my internship was a godsend.  I still spent a solid month processing, learning more about proper inversion techniques, processing again, learning what kind of information we could draw from the data, and then processing once again.  The poster-making process was a real kicker.  It's mostly done, just a couple more additions I need to remember.  That beast took me several weeks to really get how I wanted it and actually forced me to make some profiles I wasn't planning to make (I would like to thank my advisor Anne for the multitude of new ideas to add to my poster - it gave me a lot of rewarding work beyond what I was expecting to present).  About five days before giving my final presentation, I was positive I would have no idea what I was talking about.  I spent that last weekend making my final figures and that really gave me the confidence I needed to give my presentation without a hitch... in front of a bunch of soil scientists, geomorphologists, biologists, and geochemists.  This summer certainly was an experience both in the field/lab and beyond what I was paid for.

Now that I'm back at school, I need to change some of my habits (and keep some that I gained this summer).  Back to studying and doing homework for four different subjects that lack a common core [Earthquake Seismology, Well Logging and Reservior Analysis, Foundations Engineering (Civil Engineering), and Philosophy of Science].  Back to playing team sports [I'm stoked for soccer and water polo].  Back to my school friends [plenty of beach volleyball and baking].  And eventually back to the snow... though the weather is very nice right now [like Boulder but much, much more humid].

The book I'm reading right now kind of sums up my experience: Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski - essentially it's a story about two 16 years old kids (in love, of course) who never age and criss-cross the United States from about 1850 to the present sharing tons of new experiences, which is somewhat what we did as interns this summer (though our experiences were rarely the same).

Sorry I don't have some epic closing statement other than... it's been good.

-Austin