Friday, August 1, 2014
By:
Back home now after my crazy, wonderful summer. I came home and jumped right back into things, moved back to school, got my apartment settled, caught up on my missed rock climbing and mountain biking this summer, and have started back in on my research projects at home.
My last week at NIST was amazing. My mentor, Joey, was out most of the week, so it really was just me powering through to collect as much data as I could before I took off for the summer. Of course, as research does, nothing worked right the first time, but I was able to get a small spread of data collection of the anthrax protein, that will hopefully be helpful in furthering the group's research project.
Ashley was great and organized a meeting for us interns to chat with fellows and physicists on Capital Hill, to give us some insight about experiences outside of the norm for a physicist. I made some great connections and got a new perspective and set of advice to move forward with in my own life.
We wrapped up our week back at the American Center for Physics to give our input on the internship and say our final goodbyes to all those at AIP, APS, SPS, etc. who really shaped our summers. Most of us interns went back to our dorms and packed up. It was weird to think we had all just met a few weeks previous and we were all going to go our separate ways again.
It was a marvelous summer and supremely insightful. I learned so many things and got such varied perspectives that I truly would not have obtained otherwise. It was a bittersweet ending, as most are.
Photo 1: Catching up on my mountain biking back home.
Photo 2: Bittersweet farewells all around- Toni Sauncy's goodbye party.
Kelby Peterson