Week 10
Project Progress
The last week was filled with poster presentation and finishing up the parts of our projects that could be done at the lab. I cleaned up all of the code for the pipeline and uploaded it to github for the lab's future work, if they needed it as the database ran in the background. The poster session on Thursday was a lot of fun to see what research everybody had been working on all summer as well as talk to people from other departments. As a chemistry lover, I had a lot of fun talking to the chemistry/bio/medical/pharmaceutical researchers, of whom there were plenty. I also got to give my presentation to the REU kids and some other professors in computer science and science disciplines.
Outside the Lab
For the last night, the REU sponsored a university-wide dinner cruise on the Mississippi, which was really nice to spend time with everybody one last time, even though we were literally the last table to be called for food and, after an hour and a half, could only focus on our growling stomachs.
Final Thoughts
This program was a pleasant surprise. For somebody who thought they would stay in the Boston area and did not really know where Minnesota was or been to the midwest, I've grown to really like the Twin Cities (atleast during the summer). I've discovered that I really enjoy computational research, I've made a lot of good friends, some of whom I hope to keep in touch with over the years, and valuable connection with genuinely caring and knowledgable faculty members. Overall, to anybody who is looking to apply or about to set off to UMN or another DREU program, I highly recommend it and hope you have as great of an experience as I have had.
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