Hello from a day of studying… ugh, that doesn’t really sound that fun. I’ll be honest: It’s not. However, after a long week (translated: 3 days of my first internship), it’s actually really relaxing to be able to sit on my couch and just watch the videos for my class that I need before my test on Monday. However, what this means is that this will be a fairly short blog… :( Sorry! Amber does need to study… Especially as Blackboard will be down from 2:30am-6pm tomorrow! WHY?!?!?! Why must they do maintenance the day before my exam?! As a result, I’m having to watch about 6 hours of class videos… and then another hour of videos tomorrow + 45 pages of handouts to finish studying.
Anyway. Amber should stop rambling about her lack of time because of the internship and actually start talking about how much I’m enjoying the internship.
Because, I’m surprised to find, I actually am enjoying it! I’ve never held a “real” job (meaning full-time) before, so working 8 hours a day is pretty exhausting for me. Granted, my time is just spend staring at my computer screen, but I’m having to do a lot of thinking, planning, processing, and coding for the program I’m scripting. Nonetheless, it’s a challenge. The program specifications I’ve been given don’t sound terribly difficult, but the main challenge I’m having to encounter is the data I’ve been given to work with. Essentially, my program has to input a 20,000 x 1,000 line text file of gene sample data from the lab, calculate the relationships between each data point and the others in its row, and then output the gene co-expressions. That’s 200,000 data points which I’m working with. Imagine if just one data point is invalid and is read in incorrectly. The whole program could fail. Hence, this is a fairly difficult challenge.
Surprisingly, I’m really happy to be working on it. :) I’m treating this internship as kind of a test run before actually getting a job as a programmer, and even though it’s only been two days, I’m enjoying what I’m doing. Essentially, I’m trying to solve a problem, and my solution, once developed, will be made available online so that other labs don’t have to create the same solution and can instead just use my software with their data. It’s a pretty remarkable thing, and so far, I am really happy with it.
The perks of my job: I have a really awesome work space. It’s a large cubicle next to the window on the 8th floor of this really fancy office building. I have a new computer, new supplies, new everything. I get to set the hours that I work- so long as I work 8 hours a day, they don’t care when I’m in and when I’m out. My co-workers are really friendly (they be awesome Asians!), and my faculty mentor seems very nice and helpful. Overall, I’m happy there. :) I’m also starting to become friends with another intern on the same floor. His name is Ezra, and he’s a senior at Vandy, majoring in Psychology and… something else starting with a P, lol. Anyway, he’s minoring in scientific computing, and we just discovered we were in the same class last semester but didn’t realize it. He’s very nice, and I hope we can become better friends- the other interns in our program are working 20 minutes away, so we’re pretty much isolated from the rest of our group. Still, I think we have more awesome jobs than everyone else in our group ;)
…Sorry this is short, but I’ve got to go back to studying. I still have another 3 hours of videos to watch tonight. Wish me luck on my test Monday! I <3 you all!
Without further ado, here’s my procrastination song of the week ;) (I’m fairly certain you all know it by now… ;)
Call Me Maybe- Carly Rae Jepsen
Anyway. Amber should stop rambling about her lack of time because of the internship and actually start talking about how much I’m enjoying the internship.
Because, I’m surprised to find, I actually am enjoying it! I’ve never held a “real” job (meaning full-time) before, so working 8 hours a day is pretty exhausting for me. Granted, my time is just spend staring at my computer screen, but I’m having to do a lot of thinking, planning, processing, and coding for the program I’m scripting. Nonetheless, it’s a challenge. The program specifications I’ve been given don’t sound terribly difficult, but the main challenge I’m having to encounter is the data I’ve been given to work with. Essentially, my program has to input a 20,000 x 1,000 line text file of gene sample data from the lab, calculate the relationships between each data point and the others in its row, and then output the gene co-expressions. That’s 200,000 data points which I’m working with. Imagine if just one data point is invalid and is read in incorrectly. The whole program could fail. Hence, this is a fairly difficult challenge.
Surprisingly, I’m really happy to be working on it. :) I’m treating this internship as kind of a test run before actually getting a job as a programmer, and even though it’s only been two days, I’m enjoying what I’m doing. Essentially, I’m trying to solve a problem, and my solution, once developed, will be made available online so that other labs don’t have to create the same solution and can instead just use my software with their data. It’s a pretty remarkable thing, and so far, I am really happy with it.
The perks of my job: I have a really awesome work space. It’s a large cubicle next to the window on the 8th floor of this really fancy office building. I have a new computer, new supplies, new everything. I get to set the hours that I work- so long as I work 8 hours a day, they don’t care when I’m in and when I’m out. My co-workers are really friendly (they be awesome Asians!), and my faculty mentor seems very nice and helpful. Overall, I’m happy there. :) I’m also starting to become friends with another intern on the same floor. His name is Ezra, and he’s a senior at Vandy, majoring in Psychology and… something else starting with a P, lol. Anyway, he’s minoring in scientific computing, and we just discovered we were in the same class last semester but didn’t realize it. He’s very nice, and I hope we can become better friends- the other interns in our program are working 20 minutes away, so we’re pretty much isolated from the rest of our group. Still, I think we have more awesome jobs than everyone else in our group ;)
…Sorry this is short, but I’ve got to go back to studying. I still have another 3 hours of videos to watch tonight. Wish me luck on my test Monday! I <3 you all!
Without further ado, here’s my procrastination song of the week ;) (I’m fairly certain you all know it by now… ;)
Call Me Maybe- Carly Rae Jepsen
RSS Feed
