Lessons Learned

This past Thursday was the poster presentation and I thought it was really neat to get to see everyone's finished projects and the results after so much hard work. It was very rewarding to see how the hard work has paid off and how we can contribute to the scientific community with our research even though we are all still undergrads. To me that is a really unique and captivating experience. That is one reason that I am thankful for this class. Another reason that I enjoyed this class was because it taught me how to be a scientist outside of the classroom. Most of the classes I take may have labs where we do some work in the field but the emphasis is always on what we are learning in the class room. This class reversed this and used the classroom time to emphasize the work we were doing out in the field. I enjoyed this fresh perspective especially since this is what I want to do in my career. This class has taught us how to take what we have learned in the classroom and apply it to real life situations and tests our ability to turn knowledge not into a grade but scientific results. I believe that this skill is invaluable to scientists seeing as much research is done in the field. This class also taught me several of the common methods of sampling used by researchers, such as seining, eckman sampling, transect sampling, collection trays, B traps and many more. We also learned how to collect and analyze water quality data. All of the hands on experiences that I have gathered from this class will definitely be useful later in my career. And for these reasons I am thankful for this class.