Week 11: The End of the Beginning

Hi Everyone!

Well, here we are…the final post in my senior project blog! I’m not the best with big concluding remarks (so bear with me!), but first, a quick recap of my activities during this last week:

On Tuesday, I presented my final presentation to my colleagues at MITRE! But before that, I sat down with my team on Monday and reviewed my presentation slide by slide! They gave me a lot of valuable feedback, like putting more graphics on my slides to highlight certain data points, or to maybe cut out some details on a certain context slide to save more time for the actual bulk of my own research! Peer review is a really massive part of doing professional scientific research, and I’m really grateful my team took the time to introduce me to what that process looks like (and plus, their suggestions helped out A LOT)!

After practicing my presentation a bit more on Monday evening, before I knew it, it was Tuesday afternoon, and I was in a conference room with my colleagues, telling them about the work I’ve been doing for the past 10 weeks! Overall, the presentation went really well! I didn’t stumble over my words too much, and I didn’t go way over time! I also got a few pretty good questions that I hope I answered well!

It felt really nice to show everyone all the work I’ve been doing and even though it may have been like a ‘final culmination’ of my project, it certainly won’t be the end of my journey exploring the professional research world!

Throughout this internship, I’ve learned more than I could have ever imagined! I’ve learned the proper procedures for preparing mixtures of substances, and proper lab safety requirements, and how to operate these really advanced spectrometry devices! I’ve learned about some fundamentals in organic chemistry that are harnessed in optical spectroscopy which are honestly incredibly fascinating (and I certainly hope to look into them more in college)! And of course, outside of the lab, I’ve gotten to immerse myself in this massive field of machine learning-something I was completely unfamiliar with before! I learned fundamentals on developing and training models, how different models can be evaluated, what the risks of machine learning are and how to be careful about them! I have gained SO MANY completely new skill sets from this internship, and I am beyond grateful for having had the opportunity to do so!

In terms of my personal growth, its safe to say that I have come out of this internship as a much more robust, analytical, and well-rounded person than I was on March 3^rd! I’ve also learned how to network and connect with people, and I definitely plan on staying in touch with the wonderful scientists I’ve met during my time here!

And of course, it goes without saying, that I consider myself so lucky to have been able to work with my onsite mentor Dr. Casey Smith and the rest of our team! They have showed me what scientific research can look like in a professional setting and have been so very gracious in letting me explore the different parts of the project we’re working on! They were so supportive in everything I took interest in-whether it was meeting with me individually to help me troubleshoot my code or teaching me how to do chemistry in a lab! I couldn’t have asked for better role models and mentors throughout this project!

Ok, now that I’ve gotten through the big reflection, I want to say that even though this is my last blog, and my senior project is at its end, I certainly hope to continue the work I’ve been doing in this field throughout the summer, but also as I start with college! It really is just the end of the beginning, and I can’t wait to see where else this journey will take me!

Thanks for reading!

Natasha