Knowledge Through Experience

The only source of knowl­edge is expe­ri­ence.”-Albert Ein­stein

I believe this is a very accu­rate quote to describe the STEM starter pro­gram. Although we do a lot of learn­ing in a tra­di­tion­al set­ting, the interns and the staff of the pro­gram try their hard­est to put us out and lets us gain expe­ri­ence of real world STEM appli­ca­tions My per­son­al favorite expe­ri­ence so far is the abil­i­ty to par­tic­i­pate and expo­sure to the internsIMG_4880 research. I par­tic­u­lar­ly enjoyed the ben­th­ic por­tion of the research and clas­si­fy­ing the macro-inver­te­brates. I am think­ing about going into ento­mol­o­gy so look­ing at the bugs was par­tic­u­lar­ly fas­ci­nat­ing to me. I also thor­ough­ly enjoyed our field trip to the Arnold Arbore­tum. I have always liked plants and thought the research they are doing very inter­est­ing. One guy there was doing research on chem­i­cal defense in plants and I thought that was par­tic­u­lar­ly interesting.

I also think this is a great pro­gram for peo­ple look­ing to go into STEM but not real­ly know where to go or hav­ing skills lack­ing for it. I per­son­al­ly bare­ly passed high school because I rarely did any work so I have some major gaps in my edu­ca­tion. This pro­gram gave me the oppor­tu­ni­ty to catch up and real­ly solid­i­fy my basic math skills that I may have missed in the past. It also pro­vides a great place for peo­ple who real­ly want to get back into school and want a STEM career to real­ly help them.

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