Week 6

Hello Dear Readers! Welcome to my last blog post of my Senior Project!

This blog post will be a bit of a change of pace, taking a moment to look back on my time during my Senior Project and reflecting on what I have learned. 

The first two months of working on my Senior Project taught me a great deal about the nature of research. As my advisor, Dr. Noble, reminded me every chance we met, this was an important lesson to learn. That lesson being that research is impacted by so many factors outside of the science itself. Politics and funding disputes and dozens of other annoyances that have nothing to do with research will always pop up and try to slow you down from reaching your goals. Battling with these factors and eventually having to make the hard choice to scrap my original project all together made me learn this lesson sooner than most. Looking back on that experience, now that I am a bit further removed from it and less emotional about it, I can see how I am better off having lived through and learned the lessons I learned.

The final results of my project also taught me a great deal about scientific research. Realizing that the months of work I put into the development of the Rocker component was all to achieve a negative result was definitely a blow at first. However, the calmness that Dr. Grbovic and Dr. Fabio showed in response to the realization, contrasted with my own disappointment, made me realize that this is a frequent occurrence in research. Although negative results are not as fun or exciting as positive ones, they are equally as important and helpful in the research process. 

Additionally, seeing how Dr. Fabio was able to transform my failure in making the Rocker sine-like into a positive, by proposing an alternative chip design that capitalized on the asymmetry of the Rocker also taught me a great deal about research. I realized that scientific research is not a linear path, and getting the result you “want” is not always for the best. Sometimes, setbacks offer opportunities to change course and take your research in a new direction.

All of these realizations have made transformed me into a significantly better researcher. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to conduct my Senior Project and work at the Naval Postgraduate School. Thank You everyone for reading my blog and supporting me on my Senior Project journey! Hopefully, I will see you at my presentation!