During my time in the lab, I have learned not just technical skills, but also how to quickly pick up new information and solve problems. One of my responsibilities has been to search for literature related to ongoing and future experiments, which requires reading papers written by other researchers related to topics that we want to study. This has given me both deeper knowledge of the field of atomic, molecular, and optical physics, and insight into experimental spectroscopy techniques and how it is being used at the forefront of a variety of scientific fields. Additionally, the practice I have gotten in extracting useful information from journal articles will serve me well in graduate school and in a future career in research, where I will have more responsibility for deciding what to study and how. It will be important for me to keep up with current areas of research so I can do my part in advancing the field.

One of the most valuable parts of my research experience has been working and growing with others in the lab. My faculty advisor and the grad students in the lab have taught me so much about the field and the equipment we use, and I have learned from them what is expected of me in a research environment. Collaborating with the other undergrads has also been extremely helpful; having more people to remember the details of a task or bounce problem-solving ideas back and forth has been an amazing resource for my growth and development. Science is all about working together, and I will continue to use the teamwork skills I have gained during from undergraduate research in grad school and in my career.

Being an effective researcher requires being able to share your knowledge and findings with others. Scientific progress is not helpful unless you can convey it to the field at large, and I am fortunate to have had many opportunities to improve my communication skills throughout my undergraduate research. From presenting my work to faculty to simply sharing progress during group meetings, I have gained plenty of experience speaking about my research. In addition, receiving verbal instructions has been an important part of my experience in the lab, and I have noticed significant improvement in my ability to come up with relevant questions before starting a task. These skills will continue to serve me in grad school, where I might have limited time to meet with an advisor before working on a project. Overall, communication is vital in science, and the experience I have gotten as an undergraduate research will be extremely useful in my future career.