Today was officially my last day at RTI. I continued with the e-cigarette research and more discussion about the mini-project about biosensors. Ginger also helped us reflect on what we were going to present on Friday about our time at RTI.
My time at RTI was unforgettable and irreplaceable. Being out in the workforce and experiencing first-hand what these researchers do daily changed my perspective on what I want my future career to look like. Even though this is quite a long ways out, before my internship I didn’t really appreciate the value of a Ph.D or an MD for example, but these degrees, specifically in the research field, greatly change one’s career trajectory. I learned that lab-work is of no interest to me, and that I am more interested in how scientific products are translated into the world and different markets. However, I also learned the process involved in getting to that level in ones career and the “lackey” work necessary to advance; because I was able to meet so many different people at RTI, I saw all types of people at different stages in their career. It was also amazing to meet people of interdisciplinary backgrounds, specifically with economics and engineering, for those are my two interests but before I was having trouble imagining what a career with both would look like. I saw how those two disciplines overlapped and intertwined, and how useful it is to have knowledge about both. The knowledge and experience I gained through this internship will definitely affect what college I choose, what major I choose, and what I choose to do after college.
