Reflecting on the first few days of the REU

When I applied to this program, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to get in. Even though I only had a vague idea of what we would be doing, I was really excited by this world of undergrad research. My primary emotion though was nervousness. What if I wasn’t good enough? What if I didn’t understand what was going on? How can I actually be a positive impact in this internship?

I felt nervous all the way up until the welcome dinner. That’s when I started really meeting the people in this program. I met the fellow interns who would be working on the project with me, and I met the people running the program . After that I was a lot less nervous. Everyone here has been so kind and I can tell that they really want me to learn. The environment here and the attitudes about learning are something I’ve never experienced before. So often learning is seen as a means to an end, something done in order to be able to reach an entirely separate end-goal. In VRAC learning is done for learning’s sake.

While I came here with very definite ideas of what I wished to take out of the program, I’m already learning that what I expected and what I get might be very different. I anticipated working all day for a single goal, learning through the work, and to some extent being tossed into the deep end. This is not the case. Already I have learned so much and the program is well structured with good access to educational resources that I never anticipated. I know now that I will leave here a more educated person, but I also see that, while I will be in charge of my own education, I am not alone in it. There are people here who wish to see me exceed as much as I wish it myself, and are willing to help me do so. I am so excited to see what else I learn while I’m here, and I can’t wait to see where this is going.