Closing thoughts

Hello again! I am writing this final blog post as I wait for my flight home to Denver in the Minneapolis St. Paul airport. Overall, this summer has been a really great experience, and it has given me new things to think about in terms of what I want to do after Lawrence!

I think one of the best things about this summer was being able to experience what field work is like. Ever since I attended the American Geophysical Union meeting last winter, I have been strongly considering working in a geosciences field, so it felt really important to me that I could try out field work. In general, I really enjoy being outside—the only thing that I found challenging about working in an outdoor environment is that I tend to get too hot easily and that I reeeaaallllly need to drink water consistently throughout the day (another good lesson from the summer: heat exhaustion is not a fun time).

A second key aspect of this summer was identifying if I would be happy doing research. Something I have worked on improving throughout my time at Lawrence is to be assertive with myself that I should not push myself too far with my workload. The development of this balance was certainly key this summer, as there was always something that could be finished or started or explored with our research. Overall, I would say that I was pretty comfortable with this lifestyle, even when it meant that we were running calibrations at 11 pm or that there was a big pile of papers we wanted to read but never got to. Learning this about myself has been really encouraging because I plan on going to graduate school and it is nice to know that I was not just comfortable with the requirements of research, but that I actually enjoyed doing the research as well!

Overall, I feel really grateful to have had this experience. It has given me new things to consider in thinking about what I want to pursue after Lawrence and what graduate programs I want to apply to. And with that, I am going to hop onto my next flight (I think I just spotted some fellow Coloradoans—one of them is wearing hiking boots and a Patagonia)! Thanks to all of you who read any of my posts throughout the summer, I hope you enjoyed them!

P.S. As a parting gift please enjoy this photo of wildflowers from one of our sampling sites.