The end.

Early wake up. It’s the last day. 8 weeks ago I was up and going, nervous and excited. This morning, the long hours and demanding routine caught up with me. I am pretty exhausted! Work at 7am because I wouldn’t be allowed to leave without one more day of field work. Rachel decided to take us to Morris Landing to do vegetation. So we got an early start to avoid high tide. Thankfully it was a bit overcast so the heat didn’t take over right away. It was weird to be out and know that I wasn’t going to get wet. Today was devoted solely to plants. Vegetation sampling involves working along transects. We basically run 12 meter lines along the coast, from water to upland. On the transect we pick three locations where we drop 1 meter quadrats. We then record percent cover for each plant, count stems, and measure heights. After 3 transects, the task becomes monotonous and quite dull. But it is a very important part of the research. The easy quadrats are the ones we measure in the water and on sand. But the upland quadrats are usually in some pretty thick plants……lots of tall grasses and my favorite, Juncus (terrible…..it could poke your eye out). We were making good progress until we saw a dark cloud moving towards us. No way! The one day in 8 weeks that it was going to rain. And I wasn’t even supposed to be out in the field. Sure enough we got rain. It poured. We worked on, until the thunder started. I couldn’t believe it. Karma. We finished 2/3 of the task and then hopped in the van to eat and stay out of the storm. Well it didn’t pass over so we left. Done.

Back at the lab we unloaded and then I realized it was over. I was really finished. I feel bad now realizing how much more work they are going to have to do. Fish sampling will continue each month until October. The whole process will start again in the spring. So I have only been a part of a small blip in the whole project. It’s nice to know that I was able to contribute a lot of time to her work and I am certainly looking forward to the final results. I don’t’ anticipate the paper being completed for another year and a half. Probably just around the time I am going to be graduating!

All in all I am really happy with my decision to intern at the lab. It was a very rewarding experience and I learned a lot not just about science, but about everyday things - from cooking on my own, to driving a truck, to conducting personal research, to organizing a group of people to work together. I feel like I have grown up a lot this summer and got a great look into post-grad life. I can’t say right now what I want to do for sure after graduation. I am thinking that a career in the sciences is probably not going to be a top choice. I can’t say that I can see myself doing what I did this summer for the rest of my life. But that in no way means that this summer was for nothing. It was perhaps even more important to participate in a unique opportunity so I know what else is out there in the world and see for myself how such an operation is conducted.

Many thanks to Rachel Gittman and the Peterson lab for accepting me as an intern.