Monday, June 29, 2020
By:
It is hard to believe that week 4 is over and essentially a month of the internship has passed. I have noticed a pattern with the way I structure my blog posts, I typically write a paragraph on how research related activities are going followed by a paragraph related to SPS committee activities. I don’t intend on changing this, so with that said, July is right around the corner and I hope that my project will start to gain some momentum this week. This should be the last blog I write about holding out for the COMSOL software license. My mentor sent me the receipt email and on Monday we will talk with the representative to get the license, finally! It is an expensive software and I am very grateful that he went out of his way to help me get access to it. Without it I am not sure, given the time constraints, that I would have had time to write this simulation from scratch with Python; although I had an idea after our first meeting of how I would do this. But, in my experience, ideas never go as smoothly as you expect when it comes to writing code.
In week 4, we had the great opportunity to listen to the career programs manager of APS, Midhat Forooq, give us a presentation on professional networking. I will take with me several tips she mentioned for expanding your professional network. She acknowledged that some people view meetings with your professional peers as somewhat robotic in nature, something I have experienced, but also noted that this doesn’t have to be the case. These are people that you may reencounter later in your career, and first meetings are sometimes awkward in any scenario, just try to make them as human as possible. This is not verbatim, but is how I perceived that particular tidbit in her presentation.
We received an updated version of our activities calendar and there are some things that I am really looking forward to, the dates are still tentative. On July 9th we have our virtual picnic, a nearly 3 hour event that our mentors can attend as well. I am sure there will be plenty of fun things planned and I am looking forward to it. On July 15th we will have a resume writing workshop, something that I will really appreciate. Every month or so, I will spend a day or two updating my resume and I put a lot of time and thought into how it is formatted and what I should include. I hope this workshop will clear up some of the questions I have had embarking resume writing on my own. On July 29th, we will have a virtual colloquium with Michael Fuhrer, someone who I have watched on YouTube several times. On YouTube, he has several talks on topology in condensed matter physics and solid state physics, both topics that have been relevant to me in my journey as an undergraduate researcher. Needless to say, I am excited to attend the colloquium to hear him speak.
Billy "Trey" Cole