Good afternoon :),
I’ve had an eventful week! I arrived at Wellesley for the summer science research program on Sunday. My greatest concern this weekend was procuring food, as my Sunday dinner of Clif bars and oatmeal left much to be desired. Feeding myself was a great fear of mine, as I’d never cooked for myself before this summer (my mother is a fabulous cook, and I gladly use that as my excuse :)). However, I’m finding now that I actually enjoy it, especially as I have the time to cook whatever I want :).
This left Monday as my great shopping adventure. It’s rare that I have an adventure at school, so I’m very excited to recount it :). Alice and I are staying across the hall from each other at Lake House, and as neither of us has a car (and the Wellesley College buses don’t run during the summer) we decided to walk to the local grocery store together. However, neither of us anticipated quite how heavy all of our groceries would be, so we had to make two trips back and forth, from Roche Bros to our housing on the other side of campus. Five hours later with a lunch break, sweaty and having walked 5 miles (with an congratulatory ice cream trip at the end), we returned to campus triumphant! Thankfully Erin has offered me a ride for grocery shopping next week, because while the trip was quite fun, it took a long time :).
Tuesday was my first day of work! I met Professor Higgins again (who insists of my referring to her by her first name, Monica, despite the resulting name-sharing confusion ;)) and attended my first AGES group meeting. There are students studying in seven different scientific subject areas on campus this summer: Chemistry, Biology, Environmental Science (ES), Astronomy, Geological Science (Geo), Neuroscience, Psychology, Computer Science (CS), and Math. We are all separated into different groups that meet once a week—Chemistry; CS and Math; Bio, Neuro, and Psych; and Astronomy, Geo, and ES (AGES). Since Monica’s research is in the ES department, I got to attend the AGES meeting, which was wonderful. There were 5 professors and around 10 students, they provided lunch, and the professors seemed very flexible about how these meetings were going to be run. In contrast to previous years and what is going to happen this year in the Chemistry and Bio, Neuro, and Psych group meetings, we will not be having professor presentations of their research for the first five weeks and student presentations for the last five weeks. Instead, we will be examining figures in current event articles, discussing the differences and similarities across scientific disciplines, and taking field trips and doing short experiences in everyone’s labs. The reason we can do this is because the AGES group is very small compared to the rest of the group meetings—and I’m really looking forward to these meetings because of the small size and inherent flexibility associated with a small group of dedicated Wellesley professors and (mostly Wellesley, but also from other schools) students.
Monica assigned me several readings to do on Tuesday and Wednesday, detailing what I am going to be doing this summer: life cycle assessments (LCA). Essentially, she is teaching me the course she taught during the spring, ES 313, called Environmental Impact Assessment. After 11 hours of reading, I emerged from the papers Thursday morning armed with the basics of LCA. As a quick summary, LCA is basically a method of quantifying all of the materials and energy that goes into a product or a building, and assessing the environmental impact of the creation of that product/building. It is an important and useful method of comparing products/buildings to determine which is less damaging to the environment, as well as assessing elements of a product/building that are most contributing to environmental costs so that they can be modified. In our research this summer, we will be creating a LCA for a model building that we will construct via a computer program. Monica had hoped to secure a contractor’s site so that we could examine a real building, but unfortunately that fell through. Nevertheless, I am excited to create our own model building and run a LCA, because the potential for LCA is huge if it can be further developed through studies like ours. Eventually, LCA could be used to determine the environmental cost of adding a specific feature to a home (like the effect of having carpet or wood floors, the inclusion of solar panels, various methods of air-conditioning, the effect of wall thickness etc.) while it is still in the design phase, which would be infinitely valuable (right now LCA can only be done on a building when it has already been constructed.)
On Thursday we began doing an elementary LCA for a log cabin, which we finished today. I find it amazing how much I have learned about the topic within a week, though Monica of course reminded me that our research will hardly always advance with speed and simplicity ;). Nevertheless, many of my other friends here tell me how much they have learned in the course of the week. Katherine, for example, mentioned that she learned more in this one week than during the entire last semester she was working in the lab!
I have also been attending lectures and lab meetings this week. I attended the Bio, Psych, and Neuro lab meeting as I was curious, and got to learn about five different professors’ research (they are all such effective presenters! Wellesley’s faculty is awesome and I will continue to brag about them.) Today I attended a lunch with alumni (our alumni are also awesome. I didn’t get to eat with one of them, but it was fun hanging out with my Prof. A lab friends anyway), and attended a lecture by Professor Kolodney about the Nuclear Challenge. This weekend is Reunion Weekend, meaning that Wellesley alumni are here at Wellesley with lots of activities (some of which we are allowed to come to!) planned. It’s nice to have people on campus, and this number will undoubtedly increase next week, when students who are here for summer school arrive (right now there are only 110 of us doing summer research.)
I also began babysitting for a family this week. It’s sort of a cross between babysitting and tutoring, as I am expected to speak French to the children for the entire time. It also forces me to get off campus—speaking of which, I need to get the brakes on my bike replaced :). Lots of little things like this come up all of the time, but it’s great to have the time to actually get them done!
Several of my friends, like Alice in Professor Kolodney’s lab and everyone in Professor A’s lab, have been working longer hours than I this first week. However, most of them have also been working for the same lab as they did during the school year. My experience is also a bit different in that I am the only student working with Monica, even though most labs have at least two students. I know next week will be busier for me, however, and luckily with everyone living so close together there are lots of people to talk to :). As it’s only the first week, I’m not sure how these factors will develop, but I’ll keep you updated!
Working with Monica has been lots of fun this week :). I have enjoyed almost all of my professors that I’ve had at Wellesley so far, each in a different way, and I have to say that I really enjoy Monica’s sense of humor. Luckily, she seems to find many of my mannerisms and expressions funny as well, so I predict that we will work together accompanied by much laughter throughout the summer!
Another thing that’s great about being here is that we’re all similar types of people :). Not that Wellesley isn’t a diverse campus, but mostly the students here are science majors who are interested in doing lab-bench research. Even the students who are working here in other areas over the summer, or doing humanities research, or going to summer school are all dedicated, smart people who are fun to hang out with. Then there’s the most important factor that’s mostly missing during the school year—free time. The very mention makes me shiver, but’s fantastic to be able to read a book for fun or sit down and talk with people for a few hours. I can’t wait for our first weekend off—I’ve already convinced Alice to accompany me to dimsum sometime this summer, and I’m going to have dinner at Tiffany’s house on Saturday!
So that’s been my first week back—lots of stuff going on, and not a bad adjustment comparatively! Plus I’m learning all sort of useful things like the fact that plastic forks melt when put into broccoli-filled boiling water and that having all the prongs bent backwards is not conducive to eating :). Hope you’re all having a wonderful Friday, and I’m happy to receive any comments or questions!
Best,
Monica
