"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good" . . . well, no. Right now I am currently in a state of waiting and uncertainty. Honestly, I feel these next few days and months will give me a lot of clarity at what my life will look like. The reason why I say this is just knowing where you get accepted to will open up a lot of decision making, most importantly where I will spend the next four years learning how to be a competent dentist. This also implicates where I may decide to live later in the future, and a whole lot more. One step at a time.
Besides waiting on dental school notifications, I am currently completing my senior comprehensive project or "comps" for short. Every major at Carleton college has their students do these before they graduate; however, these look different for each major. For most, there is a research project and paper involved usually capped off with a presentation. The chemistry major is unique in that it is the only or one of few that allow group comprehensive projects. Students typically get in groups of 4-8 and work closely with a faculty member or two to dive into a chemist's work. It ends with a paper, presentation, and discussion with the scientist who is flown to the school. However, I have elected to take the second option the department allows for comps, an individual paper. For this, I have a 20-30 page report to write about any chemistry topic of my choosing within reason. My topic, which I am now writing, is about graphene and its electronic properties. I don't want to bore you, so I will have a separate post once this is all said and done.
Oh, I forgot to mention, the main reason for taking this second option is in hopes of travelling to Japan on an off-campus studies program which takes place spring trimester. This wouldn't have been feasible if I had done the group comps option (they present spring trimester).
As of now, I am riding out winter break doing some school work, hobbies, and relaxing. I found out recently that due to COVID-19, that winter trimester will take place at home for the first week - I feel like my time at Carleton is dwindling by the minute and am saddened the time is getting shorter and shorter. It will be an interesting term, but I am ecstatic that it's not 100% remote.
That's all I can think of for now. Ta-Ta!