Oberlin Blogs

Your name is TESS. You are a SUMMER RESEARCH ASSISTANT at OBERLIN COLLEGE. You are also a LIFEGUARD and a BLOGGER. Currently you are contemplating writing your next blog in the style of a TEXT-BASED GAME.

There are a lot of stories that I could tell about the process of writing my thesis, but I'll just share one piece of advice: if you doze off during a late night in the library, when the building closes you will get locked in.

or, What I Did Over My Summer Vacation: archaeological fieldwork and an experiment in transatlantic blogging!

Entry may or may not include a sick freestyle!

I'm currently getting paid to spend my summer doing atmospheric physics research in Hawaii. That's right, I'm living life through pineapple-scented nose-filters. They're better than rose-colored glasses.

Why am I back in Oberlin? Because it's fun to feed leftover tater tots to the albino squirrels.

Here's my attempt at making an FAQ about undergraduate research. Doing research as an undergraduate has been a big part of my education at Oberlin. I've never been completely sure if I want to pursue science as a career, so doing research has made the idea of a "career in science" less of an abstraction, and I know more about what I like and don't like about the scientific process.

Now, I even dream about research. And I mean that quite literally.

To do this, I siphon off a few milimoles of the mixture, using a lot of liquid nitrogen and a pretty intimidating vacuum system, bring it over to the GC, and shoot it through. Basically.

Interest piqued? The title is an anagram for something pretty awesome at Oberlin.

Much of the cutting-edge knowledge about the world is out of reach for most of the people who inhabit that world. But access to knowledge is a good in and of itself.

Or: The Life and Times of an Elite, High-Powered, Unpaid Lowly Intern