Start a daily or weekly journal and reflect on your work and involvement with the company or firm.  Think about the following questions as you post your journal entries.  •What are you learning from your day to day experiences?  •What are you learning from the professionals on the job?  •How do you see yourself fitting in to the workplace? •What contributions could you make?

Week 1: May 29-31

This week was very difficult. I wasn't sure as to what I should be working on, I didn't know what to do in the lab, where to be, etc. 

Week 2: June 3-7

 Things are getting better. I'm finding that I'm fitting better into the dynamic of the lab. I like that we have lab group meetings every morning with our PI, so we're all on the same page. Still, I am uncertain as to what I should be working on most of the time, especially because I don't know how to use any of the lab equipment yet. It also doesn't help that while I do have a point "B" to ultimately get to from the point I'm at right now, but I don't yet have a plan or timeline as to how I will be getting there. During this next week, I am determined to make the best of my time in the lab and ask for help from my grad students if I need it (which I'm sure I will). The challenge is that my PI will be away traveling for the next 2 weeks, so I'm going to be very much independent and responsible to keep myself accountable of my work for that time. I think that ultimately, it will make me a better researcher, though, so I'm somewhat glad for this challenge. 

Week 3: June 10-14

This week has been fairly dull. I still don't have a real research project as much as I have a "busywork" design project, so I spent the week finding literature and learning how to use AutoCAD by online tutorials and trial-and-error. I've come to realize that I need to find a real, independent research project to work on.

Week 4: June 17-21

I have been adopted into another lab and I have a legitimate research project of my own now! I will be attempting to synthesize palladium, iron, and nickel nanoparticles using an electrochemical method involving deposition of chitosan onto steel plates. I will be characterizing these plates using various methods, including FTIR spectroscopy, optical microscopy, and Raman spectroscopy, which I used this week. Next week I have SEM time to see if I was successful in growing these nanoparticles. 

Week 5: June 24-28

This week was mainly spent analyzing FTIR and making more samples of nickel, iron, and palladium deposited on chitosan. On Wednesday we did SEM on my samples...and unfortunately, the palladium nanoparticles were the only ones we successfully grew. Next week I'll be trying to synthesize the nickel nanoparticles by trying different voltages for deposition and then doing SEM again. I also learned how to use the FTIR microscope. 

Week 6: July 1-3

Due to the holiday, we had a short week in the lab.  ...