What was your favorite part about your UseIT experience?

Living with and bonding with the other interns alongside with being in
LA. I also really enjoyed the San Diego field trip, especially
staying at UCSD and the supercomputer center because the guy showing
us around the place was a really captivating speaker.

What about the UseIT program have you benefited from most?

I benefitted from learning some geology and even though it is not the
most interesting to me, I like to have knowledge about different
subjects so it was a nice exposure for me involving something new.

How has your understanding or appreciation for earthquake science been affected by the UseIT program?

I knew hardly anything about it before I came here, and I am now at a
level of understanding that the average person is not, even though I
still have a lot of information I could learn. I also realized how
big of a deal earthquakes can be following the Sumatra earthquake.
Since that tsunami, I have become more aware of earthquakes and trying
to keep myself more updated in recent earthquakes around the world.

What would you recommend to future UseIT interns?

I recommend being social, trying not to forget that although we should
work hard, we should also have fun being that it is summer and a rare
experience that we are all here. Take time to get to know the other
interns and at least make an effort to hang out together.

What is the atmosphere or working environment like?

It was pretty comfortable and laidback. It was nice having the
flexibility although for some people a stricter schedule can work
better. It would have been nice to have fewer meeting in the
beginning so we would have had more time to actually work.

What about the friendships you've made while staying here?

I can't even put this into words.

If you would do anything differently if you did this program over again, what would you do and why?

I would have started my statistical analyses plugin earlier.

Has this program influenced or affected your plans for a career? If so, how or why?

No. I still don't know what I'm doing. I never had intentions to
work in geology or as a programmer and still feel the same.

What have you done in the UseIT program this summer?

At the beginning of the summer, I helped with programming for one of
the programs to add functionality to it, and also helped begin the
Martin Mai plugin. I eventually started my own plugin to display a
plot of magnitude versus log(frequency), which is the first plugin
among a future set of others that help to perform analyses on
earthquakes. Outside of work, I feel that I have helped to organize social events and try to get people socializing. I have met so many people this
summer. :)