Hey all,
This is my fist ever her campus article and I am super excited to be writing this right now!
This past summer, I was offered a position to be a research assistant in a lab under one of my professors. When accepting this position, I was very unsure of whether I was going to like it or the people I would be working with. I have always been quite skeptical when trying new things. I decided to put that past me and on my first day, went were to the field site, which is a tiny fen about 15 miles off UNH’s campus. On the first day, I feel in love with the place that I was going to be spending so much of my time this summer. This past summer I had to split my time between field work and working within the lab.
I feel like I came out of this summer as a different person who has grown so much. One of the major things that I learned over the summer, would be that it is okay to ask for help. Over then summer there were many things that were breaking and that I would have to fix on the tools that I was using to collect my measurements. Most of the time, I had to clue how to fix them and would have to ask people to help me. When asking them, they would assure that asking them to help me fix the equipment was the right way. Also, I got to know these people, because we would fix the equipment together.
Another things about myself that I learned over this past summer would be that I really enjoy doing hands on research and would like to continue doing it. Before this position, I only did hands on research in class and would then be expected to write about it. When doing that, I did not think that field work would be my thing.
Lastly, I learned that I really like to work independently and at my own pace. With that I learned how important it was to create a schedule and stick with that. I got to see how not sticking to a schedule can really mess up the flow of the week a few different times over the summer. That ultimately meant that some things were not getting done that week.
That is all guys! I really hope you enjoyed my first article!