Sunday, July 26, 2020
By:
This week was mostly preoccupied with my upcoming webinar and ROTC activities, but both are going splendid and I am so excited for these final weeks of my internship here at APS!
A lot of my time this week was spent doing rehearsals and final edits for the webinar I will be hosting on Wednesday, July 29! I spent hours rehearsing my talk in order to get down pacing and cadence, as well as a run-through with Midhat and then the whole Careers department. Many thanks to Midhat, Crystal, and Leslie-Ann for helping me with my practice runs and for all your valuable feedback! Besides rehearsals I continued to finalize the more minute details of the slides, such as adding transitions, to ensure the talk goes as smoothly as possible. This prep has definitely been a different process for me since most of the longer form talks I’ve given previously have been in person, so getting the exposure and practice on how to give talks online will definitely be a valuable skill I can use in the future!
A quick note on the status of Shape Up: Midhat and I were able to approve and add some final touches onto the first series of emails that are going to be sent out. I look forward to receiving the data on how these emails were received from our soft launch and getting feedback on how these emails have been able to help students and young professionals prepare for their future careers!
Due to some technical issues, the Web Team had to move our meeting from this week to Monday, July 27, to go over the changes they plan on making to the Physicist Profiles page based on Midhat and I’s suggestions. Midhat and I are excited to see how it turned out! There also has not been much forward progress on the physicist profile I have written due to the webinar, but I plan on utilizing my time after the webinar to finish up that profile.
The abstracts for our final presentations to go over what we did during our internships are due July 27, so I have also spent some time this week reflecting on my time here at APS and trying to distil the activities I’ve been doing into a concise abstract. It definitely wasn’t as simple as I originally hoped!
In terms of social engagement, it was a fairly good week. I was able to meet with some friends in ROTC as we went to a local base to get our commissioning physicals. I was also able to complete some interviews for what branch I would want in the Army when I commission, which was a lot of fun! My time here at APS definitely helped me prepare for them, which is great! I was also able to spend a large amount of time with my family. School and ROTC training is coming up very soon after this internship ends, so I’m trying to spend as much time as possible with them while I can. I also began to have a few meetings about my research on campus in the fall and began coming up with a list of priorities to complete in the fall in relation to my senior thesis. Overall, it was a good week socially!
While I really don’t want my time at APS to come to an end, I have been enjoying every last second of it and this is an experience I will remember fondly for the rest of my life. However, there are still many things to be done and there’s no time to take my foot off the gas! I am so excited to host the webinar next week, and I hope it becomes a go-to resource for undergraduate advisors!
Jack Moody