Ok so I have missed a few days of blogging but its because I’m writing a very long post about my story through my undergraduate schooling and just my career search in general. Eventually Ill post the long blog post (I call it my novel lol)

Lets see where do I start? Ok so it looks like my last post was from June 4th.

June 4th – BBQ, Geocaching, and Photos with Paul

So the rest of the day after the luncheon lecture with Eliot was pretty great. I think my favorite part of the day (besides the luncheon lecture) was the BBQ and group pictures! Both were super fun and great. They both caused us to walk a lot and it was pretty tiring but the photos that Paul took were great! The food at the BBQ and the company was awesome. The path we took at the park with geocaching had some beautiful scenery. As usual I took about a million pictures of it and the flowers there were gorgeous (just in general Ames has gorgeous scenery and wildlife). It was just overall a super fun day with the group and it was honestly a much needed fun time with them.

Photos with Paul

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

BBQ and Geocaching

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

June 5th – Not the Greatest Day.. but it still turned out alright

This day was just the usual with two courses in C++. I want to be honest though and say I felt a bit embarrassed and misunderstood today. So today was the day that my team decided to ask the C++ instructor if we could go to our lab and get a head start on our project. The reason we had asked this is because we felt that we have been the one group that has had to stay until 5:00 every day since every free hour that we have our group schedules us to meet with them. However, the way we had asked made it seem like “we already know everything and this is too easy for us so we don’t want to waste time on this” though this is NOT the case. I personally am not a fan of programming as I tend to get frustrated over the smallest things. I just felt since I have taken the courses in school I had learned this all but I in no way was saying that I am an expert (on the contrary I feel quite the opposite). I just meant that I would be able to sort of get through the exercises with the knowledge I have gained from courses I have taken in C++ at my university though I’ve needed a refresher on some of the more complicated topics. I want to apologize to Adam for making it seem like what he was teaching us was not enough (it definitely has been a really great refresher) and to my fellow REU interns for making it seem like it was too easy or that I was an expert. I hope this all was clear and hope everyone can understand where I am coming from. To end this post on a better note I finally went to the gym! I had some issues getting in at first but overall my workout was great and still feeling sore today(June 7th). Another not so great thing happened where when my workout was over I was planning to ride my bike but when I got to my bike the front tire was absolutely completely flat! I ended up walking back home instead as the cardio part of my workout. Ill mention what ended up happening the next day. I realize after rereading this post that this wasn’t the best day but there were definitely some good pieces to it.

June 6th – Evrim Baran, Scanning Galore, Game Night, and Bike Mystery Solved

There was actually a lot that ended up happening on this day. We had 2 hours free in the morning that I tried working on my “novel” blog post. Then we had the luncheon lecture with Evrim Baran and I really enjoyed it. I love how she is combining design with education and honestly it makes me wonder if it might be an application of design I would want to do. There are so many opportunities and its hard to know what direction to take. I’d love to talk with her more because I really admire her work. I particularly liked the statement she made about people creating their own majors which I totally wish was a thing. I feel like when I look at my degree or even possible Masters degrees I always look at the courses and wish I could choose certain ones and make my own courses that I think I will enjoy and learn a lot in. After we met with Evrim we pretty much went with our mentors and had to do all sorts of stuff with scanning though when we did the scans they came back and told us that the range was too small so certain areas didn’t get scanned… It turned out alright and we instead went to the other lab to use the other scanning system and learned how to do it in 3D (hoping I can remember how to use it again next time) but the process is very long even though the scans come out a lot clearer and the window is super small in comparison. it seems like the second machine is going to take us a lot longer to scan everything. I think the calculation was we will have to scan 150 times with different samples and windows and trials… Each scan probably taking a good 3-4 minutes.. Anyways after we finished the demonstrations I came back to look at my bike with Alex (he is seriously great with bikes). He helped me figure out that the tubing in the wheel that was flat had a big hole in it. I now have to go back to Val’s to see if she can replace it and Lucas was nice enough to drive me over there today (June 7th). Everyone here is so nice and willing to help and I feel like its so different then back in Florida. Most people in Florida have that I have to help myself first perspective. Last but not least to end the night we had game night! It was super fun as we played apples to apples, pictionary, and got to draw with my roommate Karina for a little bit. Our group (Kelsey, Lara, Karina, Vrinda, Andrew, I) had a blast and we really had a lot of fun together.

June 7th – A Very Busy Day Ahead

Finally we make it to today’s blog post. Today so far has been pretty good as we started off our C++ course again. The plan for today since its only still just starting is lunch, continuing my “novel” blog post (and hopefully finishing it), more C++, meeting with our mentors again, then going to Val’s to get my bike fixed up. Wow sounds like another packed day haha though honestly this is everyday. It is great that we are keeping busy but definitely I truly enjoy the times where the interns are all hanging out enjoying ourselves.