Blog 11: Reflection

As senior projects have concluded, I wanted to talk a bit about this journey. I became interested in this field in general because of the summer camp I attended before junior year. My instructor there helped me connect with Dr. Smallwood. I was pretty certain since last year that I wanted to pursue a senior project, since it would give me extra guidance from BISV, and I am really grateful that I did not have to find a new external advisor.

However, my T3 looked quite different from what I expected. Including Disneyland, I went on 5 trips for college visits and other things, and while on those trips, I wasn’t motivated to spend any time on my project. Also, as college decisions were coming out, I wasn’t as nervous as some others, but I was struggling to focus after decisions were released, as I discussed them with my friends. Finally, I definitely had some senioritis. Working with students at SJSU, I started on this project in January, which helped a little, but ultimately, I was not able to get to the part of my project involving Sb2O3. 

What I completed in my project also turned out differently from expected. At the beginning, I thought I would learn the physics to be able to do calculations to compare with my results, but I realized that to understand a little of just a few pages of textbooks or papers, I needed to reread it many many times, and I had no idea how to do anything myself. Hopefully if I keep taking physics classes in college I will be able to understand more of the theory involved in this field in the future.

I want to end by thanking all of the people who worked with me and guided me through this project. Without them, it would have been impossible. First, Dr. Smallwood, for providing me with resources and patiently teaching me. I would also like to thank Dr. Mo for giving me advice throughout. They helped me prepare, in my opinion, the best presentation I have ever given, even though I stumbled a bit in the middle. Thank you to Dr. Noble for advising me for a couple of weeks. I’m also grateful to my teammates Ayane, Luke, and Andre for answering my questions and working with me. Lastly, Mr. Cunningham for running this whole program.

Thank you to everyone who came to my presentation or read my blogs. Hopefully you learned something. That’s all from me for now!