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Week 1 - Let the CMOP Experience Begin!
Submitted by Ashley Anhalt on June 13, 2011 - 2:37pm
My first week at CMOP started out with orientation, which was simple but informative. I was able to meet with my mentors and was presented with a lot of material; it was up to me to familiarize myself with these new ideas. I came into this program not knowing what I would be doing; even days before coming here, when people asked me what I would be doing up in Oregon, I literally answered: "I don't know, some form of water analysis." Now I can definitely say that I am more aware of the project presented to me and although it is still very open-ended, I have been provided with more direction and structure. Although it probably goes without saying, I do feel a little overwhelmed with so much information and independence. I expect that as the weeks go on my project will better reveal itself and working with CMOP will seem like second nature.
Although I took the first couple days to finish all the necessary training videos and read up on general background information, I have been assigned a statistical role on my project and have spent the last few days studying and applying principal component analysis. I would like to say that I have familiarized myself with the necessary software for my statistical analysis, but this will better show as the days go on. I hope, however, that I have the opportunity to do some hands-on lab work as well this summer. Currently, no new data has been collected, tested, or analyzed, however, I have been looking at older data from a statistical point of view in order to get comfortable with the analysis viewpoint of things.
Overall, my experience here has been amazing. I will admit however, it is a slight challenge to get used to a 9am-5pm work schedule, but I'm hanging in there. And I even had my first Oregon public transportation experience this week, which ended with having to walk about 20 minutes to get back home. Nevertheless all was good and I am beginning to master the Oregon TriMet system. Everything is so green and beautiful here, and the weather is wonderful!
