The time has come... this week was my last week in College Station. I stopped collecting data from the plugin and started to analyze it. My findings were pretty interesting and aligned with the behavior that the research team expected to see. However, because of time limitations and the fact that there were not more than 4 participants in each activity of the experiment, I have decided to label my findings as "Preliminary Results", because we certainly need a lot more participants before we can reach a proper conclusion. I noted this in my final paper and poster, both of which I also finished during the week. Additionally, DREU participants received an email regarding the possibility of presenting a poster about their summer project at the Grace Hopper Conference. I literally jumped off my seat excited! It has been a dream of mine to attend GHC, but personal circumstances have not allowed me to do so. The email asked for abstracts and promised to let us know if we were selected very quickly. Dr. Hammond was in the lab for most of the week, and her help was invaluable! I am so thankful to have had her as my faculty mentor.
We had two poster sessions this week: a "practice" session on Wednesday, and an "official" session on Friday in which we were judged by both peers and professional judges. The first poster session was a lot of fun and helped me get prepared for Friday's session. I was a little nervous at first, but once I had my first "visitor", I didn't want to stop talking about my project! A surprising amount of people visited and were genuinely interested in the project, all of which agreed that we need better ways to handle cyberbullying and, even better, prevent it. After this session, we had a "farewell" lunch with other CSE REU students. It was sad knowing this would be our last lunch together, but we still had a good time. Friday's poster session was also great, and I was excited to get to share my project with others once again. Just like Wednesday's session, a lot of students were genuinely interested in the project (not just because it was mandatory to review it!).
After the poster session, some of us went to the pool and had barbeque. We also went out at night and said our "goodbyes". While sad, I am grateful to have met these people and to have shared my summer with them. I returned to Puerto Rico today. Upon my arrival, I received an email confirming my poster presentation at GHC. It was the most amazing news I could have gotten upon my arrival! All in all, my summer in Texas was amazing. I met a lot of great people, went on little adventures by myself, and acquired skills that I would not have developed otherwise. Most importantly, I learned so much about grad school and confirmed that it is the next step that I want to take in my life.
I am truly thankful for having been given this opportunity. Good bye, College Station... or see you later? :-)