Monday, August 20, 2018
By:
I am not sure if I can properly encapsulate the intern experience I had here. I feel so blessed to have had this opportunity and to be able to learn so much, and to meet such incredibly wonderful people.
I learned all about historical research and some of the amazing ways the hard and social sciences interact with each other. Being able to develop my own teaching materials and work in education and outreach have me the information I needed to decide this is what I want my career to be. I changed my plans for my senior year to better reflect the skills I will need to continue in this field, and have started using the contacts I gained at ACP to network further job opportunities.
I learned about absolutely amazing historical figures and how they impacted physics today. My final published teaching guides explained Luis Alvarez, Victor Blanco, Alan Turing, Sally Ride, Fred Begay, and Wanda Diaz-Merced. These people had such interesting lives and meaningful work, I feel incredibly grateful to have spent the summer not only learning about them, but sharing their stories with the world.
I met incredible people too. The interns and my mentors all made this experience more than worthwhile and impactful for me. Greg Good is the best mentor I could have asked for. He is kind and understanding of the time I needed to learn the work, and needed to myself. He was always willing to talk to me about things outside of internship, from life advice, to retirement planning, to where to buy the best fountain pens in DC. I look forward to continue working with him over the coming year. My roommates were wonderful to live with, which was a big deal since I have never lived with people besides my family before. I loved the community we built together. How people would flow in and out of each other’s flats asking for ingre to make food, join in on movie nights, or just to say hi cause we were bored. Though we were hardly ever bored with all of the amazing things to do in the DC area. We went out to the monuments, girls nights and restaurants, Capitol Hill, the library of Congress, the University of Maryland’s Campus and more. I learned wonderful things about vegan cooking from Jesus and Elon, had wonderful bonding experiences with Phoebe and Bridgette throughout the summer, nerded out about Avatar the last Airbender with Krystina and gaming with Daniel, and made wonderful friendships with the rest of the crew. I can’t wait for the wonderful things to come in all of our lives. New jobs, babies and families, moving places. We have already mentioned we want to try and have a reunion in a few years.
All in all, I got everything I wanted from this internship and more. I got the experience of working in diversity and education, working in an office setting, traveling to wonderful places all around DC, and meeting so many people I can now call my close friends.
To those considering this internship program in the coming years. Do it. It is so worth it. You will get more than you could ever think to ask for.
Stephanie Williams