The end of my senior project journey has come, and as I prepare to create my final product I am reflecting about how much I learned in the past twelve weeks.
I began this project without any coding knowledge, and I am still learning to this day. Everyday, I become better at understand the logic behind coding. At first, I struggled with learning the syntax of Python and understanding the coding vocabulary. After becoming more comfortable with the language itself, I had to learn how to accommodate different libraries and how to work with type specific functions. I also had to learn how to quickly go through the thought process of achieving a task with code. At first, this process was slow for me, but as I solved more problems and did more things with my code, I learned how to go through coding logic more quickly. I learned a lot about coding and a lot about how I learn well while working on this project.
I also learned that it is always okay to ask questions. When I began working in this internship, I felt intimidated when I did not know how to complete a task I was asked to do. However, as I continued working I was encouraged to ask questions and was grateful that both my external advisors were always open to helping me.
My code is finally running without errors, and I am so close to having findings. My Splatalogue data is being collected and my code is being adjusted to my own LMC data. Looking back at my code, Dr. Colgan and I have written nearly 200 lines and watching my code run without errors is very rewarding after having to keep debugging it for so long.
At the end of my project, I hope to have some peaks that my code has recognized and a collection of code that can be used with other astronomical data. I hope my final product will be useful to my external advisors in the future when they look at other star forming regions.
I would like to thank Dr. Colgan and Dr. Rangwala for teaching and helping me accomplish my personal goals to learn Python and write some successfully running code. I have learned so much from my experience at this internship that I will take with me and hopefully use in my future endeavors.
I would also like to thank Mr. Adams, my school advisor, for helping me keep my ideas fresh and organized for all of my blog posts, proposals, and presentations.
Lastly, I would like to thank Ms. Belcher for organizing everyone’s senior project and keeping all of her students on their toes.
I will be presenting about my project journey on May 23rd at the Double Tree Hotel in San Jose, and this will be the end of my senior project journey. To those who will pursue a senior project in future years, I recommend exploring a topic that you have not explored before. It may inspire you in more ways than you may have expected.
As always, thanks for checking in!
Namita