Maylen's Summer in Puerto Rico!

Hello Everyone!

I spent the great majority of this summer as an REU Summer Research intern on the El Verde Frield Research Station in the El Yunque National Rainforest in Puerto Rico. I left June 6th, and returned August 8th. The two months I spent over there were an amazing oportunity and experience.

My mentors were Dr. Jorge Ortiz and Debora Figueroa. Dr. Ortiz had much work to do, so Debora was really my full-time mentor. I had so much fun working with her on a project designed to quantify the carbon quality in urban rivers in Puerto Rico. The first week I arrived was a nightmare! I had to leave early, before spring quarter ended, so I still had papers to write and finals to take. That first week I had to finish all my school stuff AND do all the research for my summer project because we had a research proposal to turn in and present the next week. After that initial hectic struggle, the rest of the time was pretty well managed.

My field work began right away. I was sampling two rivers, and it was tiring work. We had to wake up during the wee hours of the morning and struggle our way through the brush in order to reach the rivers. Then we set up our equipment and took several water samples for analysis. It was dangerous at times, we even suffered an iguana attack in the middle of a deep pool. It just flew out of the brush and ran straight for us! We survived that and many, many hours of scorching hot sunlight on our backs and necks, which eventually led to a very interesting project.

Aside from work, my roomates (4 other girls) were very nice people. We all came from different parts of the US, and one of them was a native of the island. We took several large group trips to see more of Puerto Rico. We visited the Guanica dry forest, which was at the other end of the island, we visited the city of Old San Juan, which used to be a Spanish fort town in the past. Everything was beautiful and the food was delicious! I think I made some pretty amazing bonds with the other interns that I would have missed out on if I had not taken this oportunity. I was so impressed with my experience at the UPR, that I even started to consider doing my PhD over there.

Finally, after all the field work was done, we had a little trouble with the analysis because machines didn't want to work, and some tests were not sensitive enough, but eventually we got it all done. At the end, I gave a short oral presentation about the project to the rest of the interns and mentors. It was very rewarding because I was complimented on my work.

I thought this was one of the best experiences I've had because I got to live in a setting completely different than LA. I was in the middle of the rainforest, listening to frogs croaking at night and rainfall. It was a beautiful, spiritual experience as well as a priceless learning experience. I recommend to everyone that an internship in another country will be a rewarding and life-altering decision. I hope you all had fun this summer too and I can't wait to see you this quarter!