This is a really delayed final post, but I’m here now.

Last Friday was our last official day in the lab 🙁 

We started our day by completing the post-REU experience survey. We did this same survey prior to coming to ISU, so it was kinda cool to compare my answers from before to now, and see how much I’ve learned and grown. At 10am, we met with the same woman we met with at the beginning of the summer to offer our reflections on anything regarding this research experience. She also brought up the concerns and expectations we’d shared at the beginning of the summer so we could give our opinions on how we addressed those concerns, or whether our expectations aligned with or contradicted our experiences. Afterwards, we had a goodbye lunch with all the other interns, mentors, and faculty. That was hard. It started as just a talk with the people around you type of lunch, and then came all the speeches. Eliot started, and then Aron, and Anjali, and Alex, and Michael, and Sarah and… all such sweet speeches. During the lunch, Heliya and Yvonne surprised each of us interns with a unique gift, along with a story to explain the gift. I received a bracelet making kit because I was known for making bracelets. I just used the beads the other day to make a bracelet! We also received the shirts we designed to represent our REU cohort. Ruby did the heavy lifting to make our design ideas come to life, and I love how it turned out. 

After lunch, we all changed into our REU shirts, and went to take pictures by the C6. Then, we had to say goodbye to Andrea. It was getting real now that we were down one. At 2:45, we left the VRAC one last time to go return our bikes. When we got back to Freddy, we just packed, ate some dinner, and then later in the night, we all hung out in our room. We played a few games, and then just talked until we were all too tired. 

Saturday was the dreaded departure day. Ruby left right away at 9ish, so that was sad. Our apartment felt too empty with her gone. Then, we all finished packing, cleaned, and I had to say goodbye to everyone around 1pm. Harrison, Rodney, Alee, Angy, and Chu-Chu all left for the airport together, so I was left behind. Walking back into Freddy and the apartment after everyone and everything was gone was so sad. It was so quiet and dark. Ugh. I’m so sentimental (if you can’t tell by now), so after everyone left I had to get out of Freddy and even just Ames because I kept reminiscing about every little thing, and thinking of all the memories that were made there in just 10 weeks. 

Anywayss, I made it back home by 7:15, caught up with my family, ate some food, and went to bed. Of course, it’s nice to be home, but also, the first few nights back were hard. For the past 10 weeks, my nights composed of either a knock on our door from Harrison or Rodney or whoever to come in, and we’d gather around our kitchen island to chat, or they’d ask what the plan was for the night, or us girls would walk upstairs, wrapped in our blankets (because the guys’ room was always so cold) to play switch, watch GoT, or just talk for a while. I think it’ll take a minute to adjust to being back from the whole experience after all of this because it was so impactful in so many ways. 

To the people: 

I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to spend my summer research experience with. First of all, everyone in the VRAC is amazing. Their apparent passion for their work, and their energy and work ethic is inspiring. That kind of environment was fun to work in because it sparked curiosity and motivated me to produce my best work. As a new intern stepping into the VRAC for the summer, everything was a bit intimidating at first, but the support and encouragement from everyone quickly alleviated that feeling. It seemed like everytime I asked someone a question, they would go out of their way to help me, which definitely helped me learn so much in such a short time span. I don’t want to single certain people out because I’m so grateful to everyone in the lab, and loved working with and meeting everyone, but I need to give a shoutout to Anjali. She was a huge help with Unity, often staying late in the lab with me so we could get something working. I would not have been able to accomplish all that I did in the short time frame without her support and guidance. But more than just being a huge help on my projects, Anjali was such a good friend. She somehow always had this happy energy that would never fail to boost me up when I was stressed out or frustrated with my work.

As for the other interns, I have so much love for all of them. It’s still so crazy to me how well we all got along considering we come from different backgrounds. I think part of what made these people so special to me is that they were all so genuine, and brought their own unique vibes and personality to the group. I loved how we could mess around and have fun with each other, but also have really intellectual conversations and get things done when we needed to. In a lot of ways, these people made me feel like a kid again – I could be myself, and still be considered and heard. I sometimes feel like a floater friend, meaning I have individual friends from different groups or I float between groups. This makes it harder for me to form those strong and, I guess more genuine, relationships, so it was really special to have formed that this summer. They’re seriously like my second family.

Also, shoutout to the curiosity crew. Even though we had our challenges and setbacks, we were always able to get things done at the end of the day, and get them done well. Sophie and Harrison were great teammates – both such hard workers and dedicated to the work we were doing, which made the experience so much fun. It was lovely working with them throughout this summer. 

So, although the research alone was incredibly impactful and enjoyable, these people really made the experience so memorable for me in so many ways.

To the research experience: 

As for the research, to say I had fun and learned a lot this summer is an understatement. Before this summer, I always knew that I enjoyed math and computer science, but this experience – working with LSL, Unity, VR, writing technical papers, and collaborating with others in these fields (and more) — solidified my desire to explore these fields further, and helped me recognize what I want my future to look like and how I can apply my skills and passions into a career. In other words, I feel like I’ve found a spark – something that gets me excited for my future. 

I’m sad to leave the Curiosity EEG project because I’ve become so invested in it. The process of figuring out LSL, creating the VR Unity environment to run experiments in VR was so challenging, yet so rewarding. This project in particular – the work and time I put into it – was instrumental in not only helping me realize my desire to go to grad school, but also being able to now articulate why I want to go to grad school. 

I anticipate going back to my normal undergrad routine – the tests, the papers, all that – will be an adjustment because it seems to be a different way of learning. From the taste of research that I had this summer, research seems to engage more of a creative side of thinking. I really loved having the opportunity to explore different avenues to solve a problem, and get creative in order to overcome challenges because there was no right / obvious way to do something. Yes, these are some of the things that made research so frustrating, but they’re also what made it so rewarding. There was nothing better than the moment I saw the LSL stream with both the Muse EEG data and the event markers from Unity for the first time, or when we saw our Unity environment finally come together. But to get from the first steps to those wins, I had to accept that research isn’t meant to be linear. In the beginning, I would beat myself up when I would have no physical progress to show for my days of work, but I had to realized that I was making progress with whatever I did, because I was – I would always walk out of the lab at the end of the day with more knowledge than I had when I walked in that morning. It took a while to get to this point though, because, for pretty much my whole life, adults have told me what to do, I’d do it, and then I’d get some sort of feedback telling me if I was on the right track or not. With research, you lose a lot of that structure, which sometimes made it harder for me to navigate where to start or where to go. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I learned how important it is to just jump in with an open mind. What you dedicate your time towards might not get you where you wanted, or it might just get you going in the right direction. Either way, you learn along the way, and that’s something. 

This experience also helped me identify areas where I can grow, or that I need to work on. Being in such a low-stakes environment, I had the opportunity to address these things, and experiment with strategies for improvement. 

Along these lines, I gained invaluable insights about myself and just life in general. I’ve learned how to collaborate on a team more effectively, align my skills and passions to a career, write and present technical work, and think and act like a researcher. I owe the discovery and development of these skills to this summer REU. These people and this situation have challenged and inspired me to step outside of my comfort zone at times to grow and excel. 

I feel like I’m walking away from this experience as a new person – more self aware, more curious, more excited for my future, and with so many new amazing people in my life.

Overall, I could not have asked for a better REU experience. 

Also, I know the whole bit about writing blogs everyday wasn’t favored by everyone, but I do think it was a really valuable aspect to this REU. It was a great opportunity for reflection. Taking that time to put my thoughts into words seemed to help me take more away from lectures, recognize my flaws sooner, and respond to my mistakes in a way that was more constructive than passive.

One final thanks to everyone who made this summer possible and unforgettable ! :))