Journal #15 - The Final Countdown: A Reflection

Huzzah! The process, the semester, all my work has been completed and is over. It’s a feeling of both relief and accomplishment, after an entire year of research, I feel like I’ve both thoroughly investigated a topic (hurricane intensity forecasting) and I have added something to the field. Reflecting back on this process, would I do anything differently? Perhaps I would tell prior me to do a more constant, steady stream of work as opposed to working in bursts over a semester. Is there anything I wish I had done more of? I wish I had contacted more experts in my first semester – I feel like just talking to people in the field would have been helpful in formulating my ideas. Yes, I had a great mentor, but I feel like talking to experts later in the year gave me a broad view of my subject. I really appreciate a lot of the comments I received on my paper from meteorologists – they were all incredibly supportive of my interest in meteorology. I also feel that this entire year gave me a year to really pursue my own interests, and do them independently. The course was rigorous because it was forced to be – I had to do all my own research, find all my articles, on my own time. Making my own schedule was a real independent experience for me. I feel I gained a lot of personal responsibility from this, completely outside of my new knowledge of hurricanes. What a great year.