Major issues

I’ve been thinking about the kind of setting that I’ll be working in if I go into biotech. It seems like it will be a lot of pharmaceutical companies and the like, and while I really would love to know the things for that major and potentially contribute to people’s well being in that way, I just don’t think that that’s the type of setting that I would be most happy spending the majority of my time. I’ve really been eyeing environmental science. I’ve gotten some good feedback about it, and I think that it would be flexible, and I can’t imagine that I’d ever run out of things to explore.
Attached is a PDF for an event that the STEAM club will be participating in a breakout session, but I’ve heard that there are also going to be some other really awesome people presenting as well including the robotics club among others.

Internships and GPS

    This week one of the S-STEM members from ASU West did a presentation about internships. Basically he said that it was all networking. *sigh* It’s not exactly music to an introverts ears. I love that I’m meeting people that are interested in science like no other people that I’ve met anywhere else, but I’m a pretty independent spirit. I don’t like to be an inconvenience for others, and when I’m ready to do something, I don’t really like have to ask anyone else before I can handle it. It’s a bit of an adjustment for me. I know that it will make me more flexible and just better all around.
     Anyway, it’s all a lot of word of mouth according to him which just makes the S-STEM program even more amazing. Another person was telling me that you can also research what projects people are working on that you might find interesting and email and chase them down to ask them if you can work for them... most of the time for free, but he said that if they like your work well enough, they’ll probably try to find a way to have you paid in order to keep you on the project.
     After that presentation, Dr Hamdan gave one on GPS/GIS. GPS is more the hardware, satellites, raw data. GIS is the software that brings all the data together into something more manageable. Dr Hamdan teaches a couple of online GIS classes at the college! It kind of all ties in really because a lot of the internships with the forestry service require the use of GPS and GIS. I was kind of eyeing those because I have career ADD and I was considering doing something with environmental toxicology.   :-D   Don’t judge me.

Forestry Services Internships

That’s an old listing, but you get the idea. A lot of GPS and GIS. Technology changes everything, and I certainly want to be prepared with the skills for any position that I might be interested in. It’s so awesome that we have classes for that.

Advisor meeting and hole punching

     My meeting with the advisor was great. I really appreciated having someone from the actual school there to talk to about classes. Before joining S-STEM, I had a really hard time trying to decide what the best path was especially when my undergrad degree was going to be split between two schools. I know that I could have made an appointment and seen an advisor apart from the program, but it was so convenient to have him just there when I was already there and studying anyway. The extra awesome part was that the advisor had also gotten part of his degree in philosophy!!! I really want to minor in some kind of philosophy. I’m not sure what yet. There’s logic and ethics and ancient. The advisor said that he’d email me some of the options that they have available. I always thought that having a minor really sounded like something special and tough, but really it’s only 6 courses (only two can be lower division or at the community college level as I understand it). That’s not so hard.
     Research continues of course. This week we are breaking our hands trying to punch out uniform plastic circles. Fun, fun. It’ll be a huge help during SEM and FTIR though especially compared to randomly grated microplastics where I expect the tool marks to be more completely random and chaotic. You never know what something will really look like once you get down to the micro level though. *shrugs* We shall see.

Eyeing the future

I've lost my note cards! I'm so sad about it. I had all the information from the mixer in those, and I kept thinking that I'd write this post after I found them. The mixer was good. I really enjoyed meeting the professors that were there. Their participation makes me think that they're actively interested in working with students which makes me much more likely to seek them out in the future. Actually, there were THREE of them whose projects were super interesting to me! I don't know how I'm go to settle on one project. I suppose that reflects my hesitance to settle into one degree as well. An adviser told me not to worry too much about choosing and that he thinks people are too worried about specializing and that leads to people being less well-rounded. I don't know though. Specialization is how we got more complex organisms. I kinda like the idea of being an expert in something, but I think he's probably right about focus especially as an undergrad.
     Anyway, I heard about a professor whose last name is Price that works with genetics and flies that sounded really interesting, but I didn't meet them, so that's about as much as I got from that. I met Pam Polidoro who was Completely kind and helpful. She not only patiently answered my questions about her research but also my questions about differences in fields close and/or related to hers and referred me to her colleagues when their research was relevant to what we were talking about. Oh! She told us to email her for invites to talks one of the people that she mentors gives about research that is relevant to ours! I'm gonna do that as soon as I'm done here! But you see how nice and helpful she was?! I would love to work with her. Most of her stuff is related to aquatics and microplastics which is part of why I'd like to work with her, but after meeting her, I just think that she's a lovely person. I also met Karen Watanabe, and we talked a lot about toxicology and the difference between environmental toxicology and medical or pharmacy toxicology. She seemed very knowledgeable, and from what I gather, she kind of straddles that line but leans toward pharmacy since her interest and research is more towards the potential or eventual effects on humans as opposed to the environment. Finally, I met Dr Marshall whose research is based on the study of proteins like enzymes as it relates to cell signalling, their interactions with each other, and their effects on gene expression. I know those things are all kind of similar and overlapping, but I can only tell you about what I understood as I heard it. I probably got some stuff wrong or even inaccurate about their stuff. If they ever hear about it, I hope they'll forgive me. I just wanted to point out how interesting all the things that they are doing are and the fantastic opportunities that are there.
     Meeting Dr Marshall last was very fortunate because she actually gave us a small tour that ended in us getting to see her lab. For the most part it all seemed very standard which is a comfort. The whole campus has the same kind of cozy feeling that I've come to associate with Phoenix College. I very much look forward to spending time on the campus. Don't get me wrong, it's still much larger than Phoenix College and finding where you fit in such a larger place can sometimes make us seem smaller as individuals, but it really is a very pretty campus and I like the idea of contributing to that thing that is so much bigger than me. Anyway, rambling! Sam is actually a part of Dr Marshall's lab, and as it turns out, they are quite the artists, regular renaissance scientists. :-P