11th Grade Internship
After having been a part of the lab for the past four weeks, I was able to see what the workspace and environment is like in the microbiology field. Over the course of these past few weeks I was able to get to know some of the lab members better and understand their stance on their job as whole. Overall there is this consensus that the work here, although it might be very time consuming and sometimes difficult, is enjoyable. The environment around the lab is very positive and the community that the lab members have built is very strong. From what I have seen, I would say that a career in this field is one that I would be very interested in. There were moments when it would get a little tough because I didn’t understand all of the concepts, but that is the process of learning the in and outs of the lab. It is a career in which the work that you do can be very fulfilling and there are all sorts of new things popping up all the time. One has the possibility to be able to be working on several projects simultaneously meaning that there is always work and new things to be done. I would say that this is one of the appealing aspects of the job and is why I am so inclined to work in a career such as this one. Moving forward I know that I would like to continue with a similar career and I am very grateful for this internship opportunity because it allowed me to experience the environment first hand.
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For my main project I focused on helping my mentor restore the marine tank that is in the aquarium room. Prior to my internship, the tank had been relegated as a side job, so it had less maintenance and was not at its prime. This meant that many pieces of equipment began to lower in efficiency or completely stop working; affecting the quality of the water as well. What I began to do in order to help my mentor was to aid in the process of repairing or replacing the equipment that belonged to the tank. Along with this I began to collect water samples and monitor the nutrient levels in the water to ensure that the changes we were making were having a positive impact on the tank. The data that I was able to collect was compiled onto a spreadsheet and converted into graphs in order to be able to visualize the changes easier. The reason why the marine tank became important is because it is where the lab grows some of the coral that they use for experiments. Currently there is an experiment ongoing that requires various fragments of coral in order to test antibiotics, therefore having the tank in proper working condition is essential. By having a healthy tank the test subjects will be able to grow and behave similarly to those found in the wild. In order for me to be able to contribute to the work being done, I had to learn more about the different filtration systems and what their purpose is. I began to study about the benefits and negative impacts that some nutrients have, and this allowed me to understand how exactly the different filters work. This deeper understanding allowed me to become more helpful when doing repairs and knowing the cause and effect of making certain changes.
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