In this blog post I will be taking a step back from the specific work I am doing for my internship and talking about my internship experience as a whole by answering several questions.
1. How did you make a meaningful contribution to your workplace?
As an intern, I have contributed my willingness to learn and help as well as some of my technical skills such as Photoshop, experience building things and basic javascript. This positive attitude and previous technical skills have helped me make useful contributions as an intern.
I have made several meaningful contributions to 3 different parts of CDIP as an Intern. I have helped Ms. Jennifer McWhorter with outreach by creating flyers to explain CDIP's purpose to the community. I have helped Grant, a programmer/data analyst, configure two CDIP field stations and I have helped Les and Andrew maintenance buoys in the Buoy Lab.
2. How was your work as an intern meaningful to your education?
My work as an intern has been meaningful to me for two main reasons: real-world work experience and exposure to new academic material.
During my internship experience I have been exposed to a real workplace and all of the expectations of an individual in the workplace. Thriving in this environment depends on self motivation and collaboration with coworkers. Indeed, I have thoroughly been exposed to the revision process during my outreach project. In this project, I have made several informational flyers. Each flyer has gone through at least seven revisions. The critique process has helped me to better my work and become more open to modifications to my work. Exposure to the work environment will help me better collaborate with my high school peers and prepare me for the workplace I am in during and after college.
I have also been exposed to a swath of academic material, ranging from how to make anti-corrosive chain to how to configure a Beaglebone to attach the correct time to the data packets it delivers. Being immersed in this material, and having great mentors to help me understand it, has broadened my current academic knowledge and peaked my interest in new fields.
3. What did you learn about your own work from your internship project?
I have learned a lot of new information about wave formation, buoys and programming through my projects at CDIP. I have also learned that I have some useful skills in the workplace. By taking notes, asking questions and staying available I have been able to learn this material quickly.
4. What new appreciations did you develop while working as an intern? Why?
As an intern I have really come to appreciate the value of having knowledge across disciplines. CDIP is a data collection program that uses buoys to monitor waves. In order to be succesfull in this job, employees have to have a specific area of expertise but also at least a general understanding of every aspect of CDIP. For example, the buoy engineers primarily maitenance the buoys, add new hardware and create moorings but they also have to know some programming to run tests on the buoys electronics and retreive the data stored on the buoys flashcard. Vice versa, the programmers, who primarily make new software and do data analysis, also have to understand how the entire buoy works to create effective programs.
So far during my internship I have done everything from configuring a Beaglebone using Unix to maitenancing a worn buoy. I have had to be willing to learn about all the different disciplines in order to be an truly useful intern.
5. What qualities or characteristics did you see in the people around you that you want to develop in yourself? Why?
One of the qualities that I see in the CDIP employees is a relaxed yet professional demeanor. The people I have been working with take their jobs seriously but do not take themselves too seriously. There is a friendly, relaxed atmosphere at CDIP that makes people feel comfortable. When people are comfortable, they seem to be the most productive and sociable.
6. What new questions has your internship inspired you to ask about our world? What has it made you wonder about? What are you moved to go out and do or learn about on your own time?
My internship has exposed me to a range of new subjects to explore. This semester I began learning the basics of Javascript for my math Honors project. Using Terminal/Unix and learning about the data related aspects of javascript and Node.js has peaked my interest in programming even more. I have learned about the wide range of outcomes that can be aceived through programming. I am motived to start new coding projects of my own.
Through working with the buoy engineers (Andrew, Victor and Les) and the outreach employee (Jen), I have also become interested in the formation of waves. Before interning at CDIP, I though waves were formed by the moon. From my experience at CDIP I have leared that wave generation is a complex process that involves waves, the shape of the coastline, Islands, and tropical storms. THere are waves that originate from different places and phenomena such as reflection difrraction and refraction all have an effect on waves. Following a reccomendation from Jen McWorter, I have purchased a book that explains how waves are formed and am starting to read it.
1. How did you make a meaningful contribution to your workplace?
As an intern, I have contributed my willingness to learn and help as well as some of my technical skills such as Photoshop, experience building things and basic javascript. This positive attitude and previous technical skills have helped me make useful contributions as an intern.
I have made several meaningful contributions to 3 different parts of CDIP as an Intern. I have helped Ms. Jennifer McWhorter with outreach by creating flyers to explain CDIP's purpose to the community. I have helped Grant, a programmer/data analyst, configure two CDIP field stations and I have helped Les and Andrew maintenance buoys in the Buoy Lab.
2. How was your work as an intern meaningful to your education?
My work as an intern has been meaningful to me for two main reasons: real-world work experience and exposure to new academic material.
During my internship experience I have been exposed to a real workplace and all of the expectations of an individual in the workplace. Thriving in this environment depends on self motivation and collaboration with coworkers. Indeed, I have thoroughly been exposed to the revision process during my outreach project. In this project, I have made several informational flyers. Each flyer has gone through at least seven revisions. The critique process has helped me to better my work and become more open to modifications to my work. Exposure to the work environment will help me better collaborate with my high school peers and prepare me for the workplace I am in during and after college.
I have also been exposed to a swath of academic material, ranging from how to make anti-corrosive chain to how to configure a Beaglebone to attach the correct time to the data packets it delivers. Being immersed in this material, and having great mentors to help me understand it, has broadened my current academic knowledge and peaked my interest in new fields.
3. What did you learn about your own work from your internship project?
I have learned a lot of new information about wave formation, buoys and programming through my projects at CDIP. I have also learned that I have some useful skills in the workplace. By taking notes, asking questions and staying available I have been able to learn this material quickly.
4. What new appreciations did you develop while working as an intern? Why?
As an intern I have really come to appreciate the value of having knowledge across disciplines. CDIP is a data collection program that uses buoys to monitor waves. In order to be succesfull in this job, employees have to have a specific area of expertise but also at least a general understanding of every aspect of CDIP. For example, the buoy engineers primarily maitenance the buoys, add new hardware and create moorings but they also have to know some programming to run tests on the buoys electronics and retreive the data stored on the buoys flashcard. Vice versa, the programmers, who primarily make new software and do data analysis, also have to understand how the entire buoy works to create effective programs.
So far during my internship I have done everything from configuring a Beaglebone using Unix to maitenancing a worn buoy. I have had to be willing to learn about all the different disciplines in order to be an truly useful intern.
5. What qualities or characteristics did you see in the people around you that you want to develop in yourself? Why?
One of the qualities that I see in the CDIP employees is a relaxed yet professional demeanor. The people I have been working with take their jobs seriously but do not take themselves too seriously. There is a friendly, relaxed atmosphere at CDIP that makes people feel comfortable. When people are comfortable, they seem to be the most productive and sociable.
6. What new questions has your internship inspired you to ask about our world? What has it made you wonder about? What are you moved to go out and do or learn about on your own time?
My internship has exposed me to a range of new subjects to explore. This semester I began learning the basics of Javascript for my math Honors project. Using Terminal/Unix and learning about the data related aspects of javascript and Node.js has peaked my interest in programming even more. I have learned about the wide range of outcomes that can be aceived through programming. I am motived to start new coding projects of my own.
Through working with the buoy engineers (Andrew, Victor and Les) and the outreach employee (Jen), I have also become interested in the formation of waves. Before interning at CDIP, I though waves were formed by the moon. From my experience at CDIP I have leared that wave generation is a complex process that involves waves, the shape of the coastline, Islands, and tropical storms. THere are waves that originate from different places and phenomena such as reflection difrraction and refraction all have an effect on waves. Following a reccomendation from Jen McWorter, I have purchased a book that explains how waves are formed and am starting to read it.