This week with research, we are coming back to normal! But, we are also coming near the end, so my work is feeling a bit more on finishing up the abstract and moving toward the poster draft. This was the first week after I got power, so I am glad things are much better at home now. This made this week feel a bit more productive. In addition to preparing the abstract and poster, I have conducted a few more experiments to complete the story a bit more for my poster presentation. I am finding some interesting behaviors with the piezoelectrics, but it is still a bit disappointing that the power outputs are so low. Other designs also show low power outputs, but I feel like I can make the device better still. Thankfully, I am getting to try a bunch of different designs for the device that I found interesting and hopefully tell a better story (especially now that I have new piezos to play with).
The highlight of this week is probably the grad school info session, which I found incredibly helpful and inspiring. I really appreciated the transparency that the dean had about the graduate school admissions. His advice felt very genuine and clear, especially because I felt like I learned how different of an admission process it is. I am very interested in grad school, especially because it allows me to be interested in a general area of study and give it a try rather than being super fixated on a very specific goal to reach, which the info session advised not to have. I wanted to engage with the student panel too, but I had no questions that I could think of. I just regret a lot not asking something and taking advantage of the opportunity more. I also really like the creative and open-ended process of research more rather than going into the workforce directly after finishing my bachelor’s, but I am still not fully decided. I especially want to know what comes after grad school and the PhD. Will the workforce be similar? Will I mainly have to work at a university with research? Of course, I only thought of these questions until after the info session. I have been chatting with my mentor a bit about how his application process went, which makes me glad that I have the opportunity to learn from other students who have gone through this process.