The first week of my internship went pretty well. I will say that I am a bit overwhelmed with the amount of research that my mentor is doing. She is also working with other graduate students using technology that has the potential to replace traditional methods of fuel to greener options. I have been a part of their meetings and research for the past three days, and I was just watching them work in the laboratory. As the days went by, I managed to understand better what they were trying to do, and it is pretty interesting!

So, I have been working with chemical engineering students and its pretty cool. Personally, I am a mechanical engineering student, and I am fascinated with statics, classical mechanics, physics etc., and I have never considered of even bothered to research what chemical engineers do. This REU experience however has showed me some of the stuff chemical engineers do in their daily work and it’s pretty cool. The lab is exhilarating. So many interesting instruments and chemicals that I have only seen in textbooks and laboratory manuals but never actually used.

On Wednesday, May 29th I helped to make a catalyst. I did understand what a catalyst is since I have taken chemistry in my undergraduate experience, and I was just ecstatic to understand something I had learned in my chemistry classes. I had never made a catalyst before, so that is one thing I can cross from my bucket list.

This has been a good first week, and I am ready to slowly begin to contribute to the project as an undergraduate student.

-Adrian