Post date: Aug 13, 2013 9:54:25 PM
These past two weeks have been amazing and memorable and perfectly represent my thoughts on my time during the internship. During the past eight weeks, I have gotten to know some amazing mentors and friends and have been able to conduct exciting research on a field that fascinates me. In this last quarter, I had a great breakthrough on my project due to helpful advice from Noel and Dr. Payne. Conducting the final statistical analysis for the project and finalizing the abstract and poster for AGU submission was a meticulous but gratifying process as it reminded me of all the work we put into data collection and research since the beginning of the summer. Another fantastic facet of these past two weeks has been the field trip to the San Francisquito Creek. We learned about how water bodies like creeks and rivers influence the patterns by which deposition occurs and how to identify such patterns once the creek has dried up in the dry season. We also found mollusk shells of recent, partially fossilized, and fully fossilized mollusks and while avoiding some stinging nettles, learned some interesting biology and ecology lessons from our mentors.
The last days of the internship were bittersweet. I felt pleased to have come so far and learned so much about paleobiology, and I was also proud to present the research and findings I had worked to complete. However, I knew I would miss spending time with my friends and mentors in the program and our hilarious and amazing games of football and Mafia. On the whole though, my time in the internship has been terrific and has exceeded all expectations. I am grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this and will always remember this summer as one of the best I have ever had. Thanks to all those who made this experience possible.