Reflection Summary

 I am now officially done with the internship and I can look back at the whole experience with a different set of pairs, as the hard times are over.

I will start by saying some things that I am proud of and that I and the rest of the team have achieved over the course. When I first started working with Deepak,  he asked me to help him perform an ultrasound quality assessment, a task I had never even remotely seen or heard again in my life. I am proud of the fact that I could adapt to this highly demanding environment and I could commit myself to a project I did not choose. I am proud that I could keep up and read the literature, which is partly due to the experience GSTR 210 and 310 had equipped me with. Without these two, I would not be able to distinguish which sources are important and prestigious. At the same time, in GSTR 310 I learned how to use Zotero, which was a decisive tool for the whole internship experience. I am also proud of the coding performance I showed, but not proud of the way I code. As I said in a previous entry, I need to improve on good coding practices, naming files and variables meaningfully and in a logical manner. I had been introduced to the coding conventions in CSC 236, but I don’t think I really knew how important they were, just because the projects we had in CSC 236 and 224, were small enough, that I could memorize most of the code I had written and I could finish in a matter of weeks. Now that I worked on the same project for 10 weeks, I fully regret not following these guidelines, and I am certain that I will in the future improve myself, using this mistake as a learning opportunity.

Through discussions, active demonstration or even sheer need sometimes, I am very happy to say that I have acquired important skills and knowhow of tools, that will make my academic life better, easier and more rigorous. An observation I had, that really troubled me, is that in Berea I was not really exposed into linux and its various tools. Things like ssh and sensible browser were commands I used every single day of my internship, yet, we got only a minimal experience in Berea. I do understand why, but I am sure that there needs to happen something about this. Another great tool I learned to use was photoshop, which is amazing for high-quality diagrams, flow charts or even just augmenting data. Photoshop is a tool I am certain I will be using a lot from now on, not only for the CS course in Berea, but even for personal use, for flowcharts, calendars or even simple posters.

Because of the high academic standards, I was upheld to, for the whole internship, this did not only force me to become better and learn new things, but it also changed my view on my future career path. This I think is the most important impact the summer research had on me. For this, I have to say thanks to both Purdue and Cornell, for showing me a glimpse in the life of a PhD student. While in Berea, I attended several career fairs and online handshake meetings. But I was never told the little things that actually matter. Seeing and working with PhD students showed me the beauty in advancing science, but showed me something way more valuable, the mental health, and other issues that are involved in it. Doing research for at least four years, is not easy for the mental health of a person, especially when deadlines are involved. I noticed that Deepak (the PhD student that I assist)  many times would skip lunch, or even sleep just because he had to make sure to finish and polish all these different presentations and small requirements no one ever talks about. With that being said, you need to also make sure that the area of research you chose is exactly what you want, with a good advisor as well. That is what I am really worried about. I got many questions answered, but I have even more questions that worry me now. What if I don’t like my advisor? How do you choose the correct school? How do you know for sure what you want to research on? And then I am also worried about not having experience related to industry, which you can get by postponing or not even getting a PhD. With all of these questions in mind, I am now certain that I want to pursue a PhD in the future, and for that I have this amazing internship experience to blame.