First Blog: The Quest for New Knowledge
In the first week of internship at Stanford and Carnegie Institution, Department of Global Ecology, I acquired more knowledge than in any other seven days of my life. As I biked to campus every fresh morning, I felt grateful to have an opportunity to work with leading climate scientists and participate in environmental research. Most of all, however, I appreciated my mentor’s kind willingness to share a part of his scientific world, his readiness to support me, and at the same time, his ability to grant me a certain degree of freedom while carefully guiding me in the right direction. Dr. Caldeira offered me to work on a project that he was once interested in completing, and, every day, spent his valuable time on clarifying arisen questions and providing me with resources that could fill the gaps in my knowledge.
As a result of his attentive mentorship and the hours I spent on eagerly studying the new material, I learned – from research or mistakes - the following aspects of science:
1) Scientific Computing
Global geostatistical analysis, as well as projections on a regional scale, require processing of large datasets. Metadata from thousands of U.S. stations can never be efficiently analyzed manually; thus, computer science and programming languages, such as Python, come into play. During the first days as an intern, I learned to use ArcGIS, strengthened my understanding of MySQL – a database management system, and, with the help of my mentor, learned some new Bash commands that facilitated my ability to manipulate the downloaded data.
2) Thorough Literature Review
In science, “standing on the shoulders of giants,” as Isaac Newton ones said, is not only far from plagiarism, but is necessary for further discoveries. As only a high school student, for instance, I was unfamiliar (and still am) with numerous concepts required for the completion of the assigned project. Therefore, it was necessary for me to navigate through multiple environmental research publications and take detailed notes. Both the content and the style of the articles I read – different sections, figures, general format – aided me in understanding the topic of interest and structuring my thoughts. Furthermore, I was thus encouraged to think about the project in terms of the literature reviewed, which helped me to imagine how I myself might format the potential article.
3) Passion and Patience
At Carnegie Institution, I learned that obstacles, errors, and inconsistent “real” data are an undeniable part of any research. While sorting data in tables, creating maps, and writing simple scripts, I encountered difficulties: certain tasks, for instance, had to be performed multiple times before I could finally obtain the desired outcome. Nevertheless, at the same time, I also learned something new about myself: I like solving problems and tremendously enjoy the work process. For me, any scientific activity is equivalent to magic – it is enchanting. It is fascinating. And, most of all, it is so involving that I completely lose the account of time and immerse into the positive emotions that I always experience while doing something that I truly love.
Second Blog- Time: A Non-Renewable Resource
During the first month of my internship, I once again encountered a familiar problem that I could not easily combat before: time management issues associated with meticulous attention to small details and inability to sacrifice less important parts of the project for the sake of moving forward – a negative form of perfectionism. The following trait would have been beneficial if I lived in a world where time is an unlimited resource; however, as I have only a month to perform the necessary calculations and three weeks to start writing and finish my first research paper, this feature of my character only hinders my progress. For example: when I create figures and graphs to be included in the study, I can waste a couple of hours on verifying that all the data has been downloaded, checking the source code, or simply selecting a suitable color ramp for a new map. Time passes by very quickly, (as I tremendously enjoy my work), but when I lift my eyes from the computer and glance at the clock, there is always a sense of surprise: “Wait a minute, where did the hours just go?” I usually bike back home comparing my morning “plans” with the actual work “outcomes.” Usually, the list of the former is much longer than that of the latter, which I find somewhat concerning. After carefully considering my weaknesses, I decided that, in science, the ability to make compromises with one-self (not the ability to absolutely surrender to circumstances) is very important, because it is the only way to really get the things done and finally moving.
Experience of a Lifetime
The weeks of the internship quickly flew past, and I, with a certain mix of excitement and sadness, look forward to Friday – my last summer day at Carnegie Institution. There is much “work” to be done in these remaining three days – finish and edit the research paper, check the Results and citations, improve figures, and, at last, submit the final product, if everything only goes just as planned. I purposely put quotation marks around the word “work”, because, in my humble opinion, everything I have done (or was usually helped to do by my kind advisor) was the most interesting, rewarding, and fun experience. Although I faced several challenges related to my lack of knowledge and at times thought that I will not be able to finish the project, these concerns automatically vanished at the first sight of “something interesting” – an unusual trend in climatic data, results that corroborated previous studies, an opportunity to calculate a value using a new method… Once, I was analyzing future (2080–2099) US degree-day normals that we projected using CMIP5 multi-model ensemble temperature output, and noticed that Death Valley was expected to “shift” by the end of the century, which meant that this region was no longer going to be “the hottest” in California. Oh, how excited I got! I did not sleep well that night, but this little “something”, which could have been just a kriging inaccuracy, woke me up for the rest of the day. I love to get such a nice feeling some times – I recognize it from my previous science project. Now, when I think about college and my future work, I can’t wait to experience these positive emotions again and again, eagerly awaiting to get hold of anything that could be potentially interesting.
If someone would have asked me: “What did you value or enjoy most?” I would have scratched my head and did not know what to сhose, because I, as usual, liked about everything. However, upon some careful thought, I would have probably said I most appreciate the fact that I got to know a very interesting and unusual person – my mentor. His teaching strategies, which consist of carefully guiding an individual in the right direction and later giving him or her a lot of unexpected freedom (and, of course, support) are very efficient. First of all, they give one an opportunity to learn from one’s own mistakes; second of all, they compel one to actually think, and, potentially, make some decisions. My mentor once said that he likes asking questions but does not immediately give back answers; I found this tactic very mysterious and usually became quite curious about the topic. In general, my answer was “I do not know how to do this, but I will try to figure it out.” If I could not, however, he always found time to explain and encourage me. Overall, I am grateful for the opportunity to experience two months of “a scientist’s life”, write my own paper, and meet such a wonderful person. Now, I know that research is something that I very much like to do, and hope to continue it.