[413-420] The paper that I’m on, I didn’t actually do any of the writing for it. I just did some simulation work for it. But my name got put on the paper. The project I did over the summer was the skyrmions and modeling them. I’m going to be helping one of my coworkers write that paper. He’s a grad student in the lab I’m in. But because I did all of the modeling work and then I’ll be helping write that because I’m that one that knows what I did. While he doesn’t know as much what I did. So, my name’s going to be on that paper, too.
[423-435] We have three graduate students in my lab. One of them started just recently, this semester. I haven’t really interacted with him much because it’s his first semester as a grad student, he’s mostly doing classes and stuff, I think. But the other two I have been working with since I got to the lab. One of them isn’t working on the same projects that I am, but if I have a question about some simple magnetism things, he can typically tell me an answer. Then the other one is the one I’m going to be working on the paper with. We’re working on the same project. I interact with him the most, even though our class schedules don’t line up all that well. We typically leave notes for each other. I’ll be like, “Hey, I re-ran the simulation and here are the changes. Here’s the data so that you can look at it.” And then he’ll leave me a note and be like, “Hey, can you change the exchange energy, make it higher so that we can see if that helps make it better?”
[597-603] Overall, it was fun doing something new for research. My skyrmions and my gadolinium iron sample. That was mine. It was new. No one else had looked at it yet. I’m sure people had looked at gadolinium iron before, but not the same that I had. Once I get the paper out, more people are going to build off of that. It’s different than, “Hey, I made a cool new bike pedal.” And then someone else being like, “I added ridges to the bike pedal. Isn’t it cooler?” It seems more awesome when it’s something completely new.
[701-709] However, before the summer, before I really started in the lab that I’m in, I was totally just believing I would finish my undergrad and then get a job and then work until I retired. But over the summer and doing research and being involved in that has definitely made me lean more towards going into research, which would mean going into more school. Because it was definitely something I enjoyed and found interesting and would be happy doing in life. My classes so much this year, they’re just sort of classes I need to continue on to next semester where I’ll have some more fun ones. They’re just a steppingstone to continuing.