Day 2: The Two Extremes

            So today was a day of two extremes, it started with meeting my mentor and the career fair, and ended with a trip to Universal Studios. Each part of the day was distinctly split from the other parts. So maybe that will be how I organize it today.

Part 1: Meeting my mentor

            After rushing to get ready and missing breakfast, I finally met my mentor for the Lighting the Pathways program! We met outside the Government Boardroom, I got there first (for once in my life) and Dr. Bob Megginson met me shortly after. I am a talker and I soon found out so is he. We already knew we had similarities with both of us being from Michigan, but we discovered we actually have a mutual friend; Rich Sgarlotti. (For those that don’t know Rich, he was one of the leaders in the STEM camp programs for youth that I took part in for many years when I was in middle school.) This bit of information made a connection that made us have more to talk about than just the “mentor/mentee” relationship.

            Bob was pretty cool and I am quite excited to be one of his mentees. The other mentee that I share Bob with is named Devin. He is a Navajo boy that attends Columbia, and we are 2 of the 7 sophomores in the program out of a total of 30 participants. Us three ended up talking for over an hour before we realized that we were well into the allotted time for the career fair, so Bob guided us into the career fair to introduce us to some of his people from University of Michigan. After continuing to talk and get distracted for another 30 minutes, Bob went to go change into professional attire, and Devin and I were free to look at the hundreds of vendors here for us at the Career Fair.

Part 2: Networking and Career Fair

            SO. MANY. BOOTHS. So little time. For real though, I spent a good amount of my day in this one room talking to people and getting the free stuff. With only a small break for a mediocre “buffet” lunch (aka a hot dog, chips, and lemonade), I continued my journey through the 10 aisles of colleges and businesses wanting me to go to them. Mainly I was interested in looking for REU’s and graduate schools with a high native population and good physics programs. Some of the booths just looked lonely so I would stop by theirs and talk for a bit. The ones that stuck out to me were University of Minnesota Morris, University of Michigan, and UC Davis for graduate school, and 3M for a possible internship. I never knew what all 3M did aside from making command strips and post-its until I stopped at their booth. It sounded like a really good opportunity, so I will look into them once I am junior standing.

Part 3: The fun stuff

I wasn’t planning on staying at the career fair for very long, but I should have known better than to think I would leave in a timely manner. A group of us from NMU, MSU, and others friends we picked up along the way decided that it would be a perfect time to go to UNIVERSAL STUDIOS. So that is what we did. We had a plan that all 14 of us would leave the hotel in a cab at 1:45, but then again we are at an American Indian conference so we really should have known it would be on Indian time either way. I ended up running out of the career fair at 1:38 to get to my room and change so that they wouldn’t leave me, but then three of us forgot stuff in the room and had to run back anyway. We piled into a cab, got to Universal and then had the time of our lives! All I wanted to do that day was go to Harry Potter world, and no one else could comprehend why I was antsy the whole time as we lolly-gagged our way through the park and stopping at a bunch of rides that I did not care about. To be fair, the first one was great which was a giant roller-coaster that brought you straight up and then straight down over and over again. I am fairly certain I lost my voice on that one… After that one, we went on a Transformers ride, Simpsons ride, Man in Black ride, and then FINALLY made it to Harry Potter world!!! There is no possible way to write down in words the excitement I felt when I saw Diagon Alley open up in front of me, and I am not even going to try. This was a trip for the AISES conference, so I will withhold my thoughts on Harry Potter world for an in person conversation, but it was something that I will definitely never forget.