Wednesday, June 6, 2018
By:
So it is early in the morning of my third workday, and so far I am really enjoying working here at AIP. I was really nervous about performing well, being professional enough, and living up to the expectations set for me as an intern, but the experience is much different from what I expected!
The rooms we have are really nice and spacious, and having a full kitchen in the apartment is amazing. I really like my roommates too, which is always a plus. In the 4 days since we moved in, I feel like I know them very well and we are all good friends, not just 4 people awkwardly shoved in the same space. After our first day at our sites, My roommates and I hosted an SPS intern family type dinner. We made pasta, and Sarah made homemade alfredo sauce to share, and other brought other dishes. Some other people have gone out to the mall in DC a couple of times since, but I have been there so much in my life I decided to relax instead. But everyone still gets along really well so far it seems.
The first day was really nice, with a lot of orientation material. It was really driven home that this program is more than a typical internship in that we are expected to network and have social activities planned as well. They really want everyone to feel like an active member of the physics community, and to get hands-on job experience. I didn't know they were going to pay for us to go to a conference within the next year to present what we worked on here, and we have a symposium for our peers and mentors at the end of the summer! It is really interesting to hear what all the other interns are doing in our group chat, and learn about the different things a physicist can do from that. We also use it to invite each other and plan social things, such as going to pride this weekend! Over the course of the summer, each intern group will give tours to the other interns as well and show each other our sites! I am really excited for that especially, and to be able to show what I am doing is important!
After the first day, we started learning about and working on our sites individually. I work most closely with Mikayla and Kristen, so we have had daily orientations together learning how to use all the resources in the Neils Bohr Library for our projects. I am really excited to see how theirs turned out! And all the people working in AIP specifically made a group chat as well, and we usually commute ina group, as well as get lunch together. Except for Micheal! Micheal got up and left at 6:30 to use the AIP gym, which is free for the interns as well! AIP really takes care of us it seems. They give us a free gym, free coffee, and tea, as well as full kitchen use on each floor. There are company parties for people's birthdays we have been invited too, as well as monthly picnics! The women on my floor made sure I knew where to get supplies and how to personalize my office with anything I want or need for support, comfort, and design. The work environment is really relaxed and flexible. I definitely bought clothes that were too fancy for this job, but that is ok. It is more business causal daily, and then regular casual Fridays. We are allowed to wear jeans and t-shirts, as long as they are proper in their design obviously. and hours are flexible as well! as long as i am here for 8 hours it is fine if I come in at 7 and leave at 3, or come in at 10 and leave at 6! if i take a longer lunch break and stay later that is ok too! they are so nice here it is unbelievable. We went on a tour and everything here is so cool. They have Feynman's high school notebooks and gorgeous wall art everywhere. There is also a lot of clubs and activities on the AIP campus. They have a book club and yoga classes, some people get together Tuesdays and Thursdays at lunch to watch movies too! I am in love.
All of this, and I haven't even talked about my project yet! I am working on teaching guides for the AIP database. This summer my mentor, Greg Good, wants me to focus on Latinx physicists and LGBT physicists. So far I have gone over the formatting needed for each teaching guide and started going through a directory fo names. The guides are way more involved than I was expecting, so if you are going to do this internship in the future, I would highly suggest becoming familiar with them as soon as possible. The thing I am the most worried about is becoming fluent in the Common Core requirements for public school. Each teaching guide has the common core requirements they meet on them, so it is easier for teachers to use them. But this is a format that is completely different from when I started high school myself,8 years ago now, when common core didn't exist. I hope I use it properly and over time it isn't as intimidating. I like that each section of the lesson plan has instructions for what the teachers do and what the students so. I have written lesson plans before, for my religious education classes at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church, and I try to use a similar format, but the teaching guides are better. They also have a section for a sort of alternate activity, which is sometimes filled out, and other times is not. One thing I do want to take from my teaching experience thus far is including alternate activities/suggestions for how to make each activity accessible for different groups. When I make lesson plans for my religious education classes, I use the tapestry fo Faith database, and each lesson plan has a section about how to make this lesson more acceptable for people with disabilities. I think that would really help the flexibility of these teaching guides!
other than going over the format, I have gone through the "Directory of Spanish Surnamed and Native Americans in Science and Engineering" which was written by J.V. Martinez.... in 1972. So the directory is horribly outdated, and many of the people in it are not in our database at all.. but it has been a really good starting place for me to find other people. I am really interested in learning more about Louis W. Alvarez, who takes up almost every listing under Alvarez in our database now(over 65 entries just for him!). I am also thinking of contacting SACNAS and asking them for a more updated list of people they think would be good candidates. They are an entire group of Chicanos and Native Americans in STEM, so I think it would be a great place to start.
Alright, I have to wrap up and go to today's orientation, I'll check in later!
Stephanie Williams