Friday, August 2, 2013
By:
It is very striking to see the dome of the capitol building for the first time. It is full of great art: sculptures, paintings, murals. The tour lasted about 40 minutes, and the tour guide shared some of her own shocking experiences by the end of it. On Saturday, we went to a Peruvian place to eat, and I had stewed goat, which was pretty tasty. In the evening, we went to a dance festival happening at the Kennedy Center. Two people taught some salsa lessons for about an hour, and a Latino band played for another hour. It was a lot of fun, and we learned some nice moves. The next day, we went to Georgetown to have breakfast with some friends; after that we went to a famous cupcake store, and then I went running in the afternoon.
And just like that, our last full week in D.C. started… It has been a very busy week. I did an informational interview to a civil engineer working at Alvi Associates. I learned about his job, company, and learned some useful advices. I also met with Roman three times this week, so far. We discussed the resume – organization and layout document, and I also started and finished the document on resume – self assessing your knowledge and skills. Another accomplishment for this week was the completeness of the document on the common job titles – initial employment for physics bachelors. This is a very useful document that will help physics bachelors find a job more easily, since the job titles listed on the document can be used as search terms when exploring in job databases.
I worked as well on my final presentation, and Kendra is reviewing it with me this afternoon to give some advice on it. Kendra also gave me some suggested changes for the networking tips document I worked on, and also on some other documents such as the common job titles document and the online job postings in physics and STEM.
Anyways, it’s been a long but very productive week you could say. I am anxious for the end of the internship and very excited as well, because this has been a great summer experience. I made some very good friends, met some very nice people, ate some great food, spent a great time here with the SPS/AIP staff, and I am very grateful I had this opportunity. This is my second to last journal, so be ready for the details of our last days in Washington D.C.!!
Jose "Ro" Avila