Day 27

Today was the final day of the REU.

We had our presentations in the square just outside the Geography department. The weather was cloudy at first but the sun came out during the first team’s presentation,which felt nice at first but led to a little discomfort on my part since I had not worn a hat or brought any sunscreen. Just my luck to sunburn to top of my head on the last day of the REU after being so hat conscious while on Kauai.

Overall the presentations were a success. The audience included several people not directly involved in the REU, and good insightful questions followed nearly every presenter. Personally I really enjoyed seeing the other presentations and how the other undergraduate’s work finished up. It was a balm to my own frazzled nerves that I was not the only person who said something along the lines of “if I only had more time, I could have done X”.

On my work, I really wish that I would have had the time to  dig into Team Hydro™’s collected data and map out the full extent of our observations vs. my predicted discharge maps. I still do not know if my work will be of benefit to anyone, but I definitely believe that it has the potential to do so. It just needs further refining to reduce the errors in the analysis. But before refining it needs to be assessed on its function now (ie mapped against our observations).

After the conclusions of our presentations we had a catered lunch of tacos, which was very popular with everyone involved. During lunch I filled out a brief survey of my thoughts on the REU, I am not sure that I did some of the questions justice, I was feeling a little mentally exhausted at the time and may have not provided enough clarity in my responses.

After the lunch, I went back to my dorm room for final packing preparations since my ride was due to pick me up in about an hour. Once I was packed, I had a few moments to say some goodbyes then I was on the road north to home.

I arrived home just after midnight and soon was sleeping the sleep of the exhausted. The only item I have left to do is converting my poster from a giant pdf into format better suited for web display. I will be doing that Sunday.

This is my last blog post, and I want to thank everyone involved in the REU for helping make this a fantastic experience that I intend to capitalize on (Hydrology for grad school? Madness!).