Where to start… On May 27th, I was very excited to see what the SPIRE-EIT REU would have in store for me, professionally and humanly, and a little doubtful as a person who is not very outgoing. I met great people, our different mentors (Graduate and Faculty) who taught me a lot about our project and what graduate school is like thanks to their experience. Also the staff at VRAC, very friendly, I had the opportunity to taste Glen’s delicious burnt ends, Lynn’s brownies, and got to know them. I especially acquired new knowledge that I will take care to integrate into my future experiences, C++, Blender, Unity, and Solidworks. I was especially very excited to learn C++ programming, I can say I can build on the little that I was able to learn with Adam and develop myself even more. I knew absolutely nothing about 3D printing, but thanks to Alex, Sam, and Emily, I can 3D print on different machines, using different software. I enjoyed 3D printing in the DABL- pretty sure I will continue at my university. I really didn’t know what Virtual Reality was (I never thought I would work on something like this back then), but I learned a lot about it, also about soundscape-another field I had no clue about. I enjoyed working on my project, EchoXR. Sarah, this beautiful soul, so sweet, thank you for adding the snacks and welcome back.

The luncheon lectures also taught me a lot about different disciplines, different paths I can follow, the guest speakers-thank you, each of your journeys was enriching for me.

David & Natasha, who have become like a big brother and big sister. That pretty much sums up what I think of them: unifying, always ready to follow us in our suggestions; maybe we were the mentors after all. Love you ❤️.

The interns…oulala, wonderful people! We spent a LOT of time together, a LOT-board game nights, volleyball, movie nights, etc… I had the best roommate (shoutout to Jackyyyy). We became so close, I can’t believe it. I’m going to miss them so much ❤️.

I love Ames, to be real, a quiet place to be-I like it. A program like this should thrive again and again. I said that at the beginning I was excited, well at the end I was amazed by my experience, and still a little sad to part ways with these amazing people. Saying goodbye was not easy for me at all.

I am more than convinced to pursue graduate school. I just realized I’ve been writing a lot woah, but I had a lot to say. Thank you VRAC, thank you SPIRE-EIT REU, thank you a thousand times and hopefully, see you again..