Week 10 Post (7/22 - 7/28)

This was the final week of my internship. The feeling is bittersweet, I am sad that the internship has ended but at the same time I am proud to have accomplished all my goals. I spent the entire week doing constant code reviews and wrapping up autograders with open PRs on Github. It was a bit hectic since I had to refer back to the assignments to see what I was working on but I was able to complete all the Course 1 autograders by the end of my internship. I really hope the instant feedback is helpful to students who enroll in this Coursera course!

All the students in my team also presented the research questions and final research paper on Wednesday during our weekly check-in. I am relieved because I finally got a positive feedback. I am happy that I was able to show growth in my writing a research paper. We also had one-on-one exit check-in with one of our professors on the last day of internship (Friday). We both mainly discussed my future plans, grad school, and whether I was interested in pursuing PhD. I received a lot of valuable advice which I am grateful for.

We also had a team dinner on the last day of internship. The professors took us to a very fancy tapas style restaurant and told us to go all out. We ordered a lot of dishes from the menu and all of the desserts too. The food was extremely good, I think I had the best smoked salmon of my life at that restaurant. It hit me during our dinner that this would be the last time all of us would be together. I hope I get to see them again sometime in future.

Overall, I believe I learned a lot in my internship. If you would have asked me about research 10 weeks ago, I would have no clue what to say. Now, I can write a summary of any research paper within 30 minutes. Morever, I can draft a research paper. I feel like my internship had just started - but that’s what it feels like everytime I finish an internship. I am grateful for the opportunity and I am also happy for getting the chance to work with such a wonderful team. I would recommend the DREU program to anyone who is interested in exploring what working in research is like!