Sunday, August 8, 2021
By:
“The Force will be with you. Always.” - Obi-Wan Kenobi
How is it the end? I guess we’ll never know. All I know is that this past week has been one of the most hectic in my life. Not only did I move into my new apartment, but I also had to finish everything to do with this internship. From finalizing demos, publishing web pages, making my final presentation, and having meetings on meetings, it was all wrapping up. It was such a surreal week I don’t even know if it was real, but on Friday we had the final SPS Intern Symposium which went very well (except when I uploaded my powerpoint to the google drive it caused a formatting error which caught me off guard). But other than that slight hiccup I felt good about my presentation and it was so awesome to see what everyone else did as well. If you want to watch the symposium it can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1eD9dOdhGM&ab_channel=SPSNational
I want to take some time to reflect on this summer as well, considering this is my last blog posting. Brad was right when he said that June feels like a week, July feels like a few days, and August feels like a few hours. The speed at which this summer has zipped by has been unreal and I still feel like there is so much more I can do and so much I wanted to do but didn’t get to do. That first month felt like I was really trying to get my bearings and so I feel like I lost out on some valuable time to get a lot of awesome stuff done, but regardless I did get a lot done and I definitely feel as though I contributed.
I would also say that this internship has really solidified my path to continue in physics education or STEM education in some regard. I still have a while left in college, but as I start to look for more opportunities, I am going to pursue one's where I get to teach and educate people.
And lastly, I want to thank everyone. To all my fellow interns, thank you for being awesome and for all the awesome times we’ve had, even if only virtually, over this summer. I can’t wait to meet you all at PhysCon 2022! I also want to thank Kayla and Mikayla for organizing all of this and making sure it ran smoothly. The summer was absolutely fantastic all thanks to both of you. And lastly I want to thank Brad, my mentor. Brad has been absolutely wonderful to work with. Somehow he is working essentially two jobs for SPS, and he still has time to work with me. And even on my off days or his off days, he was always there to support me and make sure I had everything I needed (maybe it’s all the coffee he drinks). He always greeted me with a smile, asked how I was doing, and made sure I knew exactly what needed to be done. Brad really made this summer so special and has really helped me grow and learn as a person. So Brad, thank you. Until the next chapter of life!
Live long and prosper,
Noah Johnson