NERTO Outcomes:

What training and research outcomes have resulted from your NERTO experiences? Throughout the summer I improved and gained many skills because of my NERTO experiences. This includes working in an office setting in a federal government building as well as working in a university lab. At the National Weather Service I learned about the responsibilities of the forecasters and I also learned what it is like to work in a cubicle from 9am to 5pm. This was very interesting to me and gave me a better idea of what it would be to work in that type of setting for my career after graduating college. The university lab at Rutgers was a very different setting than the cubicle at the Weather Service. In the lab I improved my communication and teamwork skills when I collaborated with the other student researchers.

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NERTO Skills:

I also learned skills regarding computer programming and data analysis. I improved my skills in MATLAB and MS Excel when I organized and plotted the largest datasets I have ever worked with before. After creating graphs and statistics on the data I learned how to analyze this data. In order to better analyze the data I studied meteorology and physical oceanography. This helped me to understand why certain events were occuring in the data and it also helped me to understand where the data was erroneous (as opposed to valid data). These skills, among others, are integral to advancing my research training.