Final day of work experience 🙁
Believe it or not, there was no stats lesson today. We sat down with Dr. Laber and had an hour-long discussion about his path to becoming a professor. He grew up in Michigan, exhausted the math courses at a tiny local college, and decided to attend UCLA his sophomore year. Beginning a program for students who had completed all undergraduate math classes, he found statistics as his way of applying the abstract concepts. Overall, our time with him was very enjoyable, as his easygoing attitude and quirky humor always kept things interesting. We gave him our gifts as thank-yous for the time he spent with us, and headed to the BOM to meet with this man Dr. Laber only referred to as “Rob” from CAA.
Turns out Rob actually had worked at the CIA, not CAA, for about 15 years after getting a degree in chemistry and working in the NASA virtual laboratories and teaching at Yale. So, quite the guy. He’d been to countless countries and had so many interesting stories to tell. His doctorate and master’s degrees had both been fully funded by NASA and a couple other major corporations. It was a really unique experience meeting someone as accomplished and well-rounded as Rob, who I felt had been given quite an unassuming description by Dr. Laber. Before we knew it, our meeting was over and Suki and I were saying goodbye to the graduate students we had been working with for the last couple weeks. Thankfully, we agreed to keep in touch with Rob, Lisa (the graphic designer), and Allison (the programmer set to work at Apple starting September).
All in all, the experience was something I hadn’t really expected. While the work was sometimes tedious, and the lectures sometimes terrifying, the knowledge I’ve gained and the people I’ve met made it completely worthwhile. Being on a college campus was also a fun experience, being able to hang out at the Tally Student Union (which I would highly recommend) and walking through all the buildings from SAS to the BOM made NCSU feel pretty homely for the past 8 days. I’m glad to have been a part of it.
