Everything is wonderful. This was a great chance to insure my decision in becoming a software engineer. I've been using labVIEW and been learning about designing VIs. They have given me a project on designing an application for data communication between the UUT, PC, and the pressure tank . And also I just want to add that SONtek YSI has an amazing facility and friendly coworkers.

Eric Zhong

The last few weeks have been enjoyable (Merkel). I work three days a week, and I have been spending most of my time sorting benthic organisms by phylum and working in the caluerpa extermination lab.

Tammy Tran

Everything is going really well at the Hubbs-Seaworld White Sea Bass Hatchery in Carlsbad. It's really interesting and I've learned something new every day. All of my co-workers are really cool and it is fun to work with them. I've been doing a lot of different things. I've taken water samples, measured egg diameters, taken pictures of juvenile fish as they develop each day, fed the brood stock, and fed a lot of fish. It has been an awesome experience.

Mick Hammock

So far the internship has been going very well. The people I have been working with (SIO-Campbell) are very friendly and are always willing to help. The first two weeks I mostly spent analyzing sound data from sea floor instruments. I also had a chance to fix some code in a plugin for one of their programs. I have since moved on to constructing a hydrophone array, which has required lots of soldering, testing, and mechanical work. I was also able to visit the Navy test facility, TRANSDEC, while they were calibrating their hydrophones.

Parker Clark

1) My internship is going great. I've always loved marine science, so this (SIO-Parnell) is akin to spending a day at the Birch Aquarium or SeaWorld for me, although with a lot more learning/work on my part. It's also shown me another side of marine biology, one that isn't so focused on sharks and whales. I've got to hold/look at some interesting creatures, as well as talk to people about future colleges. Overall, I love what I'm doing, and I'm quite sad that my six weeks are almost up.

2) Most of the time I'm sorting plankton samples for one of the grad students. This means taking a five milliliter sample out of a 100 ml jar full of ethanol and plankton, and then sorting it based on type, such as nauplii, zoea, echinoderms, and polychaetes. On Mondays and Wendesdays, I'll walk with her over to Greg Rouse's lab to do some DNA work (sampling, PCR, and sequencing) on the adult forms of the echinoderms I'm finding in her samples. Some days, though, the grad student whose plankton I'm sorting will go out on a dive (or something of the sort), and then I'll work with another grad student who's currently writing her dissertation. I'll sort her turf samples, looking for crustaceans, worms, snails (more specifically, the wavy turban snail), and bivalves. I also will occasionally help out a third grad student with her high school invertebrates class, and on tuesday I'm looking forward to going tidepooling at 6 AM with said class. I've also helped this grad student with one of her projects based around the purple sea urchin and it's use for uni- her intended project was to tell what was the best conditions for growing sea urchins with class A gonads, but most of them ended up dying because of a mix-up in the aquarium. So I ended up helping her and her partner rid the tank of rotting kelp and urchins and weigh/take pictures of the remaining male sea urchin's gonads. And if all of that doesn't work out, I'll help the first grad student with her citations by entering them into EndNote. Overall, this is tons of fun, and I'm really glad I got accepted!

Courtney Prodor

Everything is going great at the internship! Besides doing data entry and scanning documents, I'm helping SAIC build it's documents database and in the process learning about databases and database theory. Nate is also starting to teach me some basic programming in visual basic, and using visual basic, I'm writing some programs that will eventually help maintain the documents database.

Alex Chang

My internship at Sontek has been keeping me busy. I'm learning to use an interesting 3D design program called Solidworks and I've tested some of the Acoustic Doppler Profilers. I'm testing to make sure the devices are watertight. All the people I work with are very friendly and always willing to take their time to help me and teach me new things. I'm enjoying my time at Sontek very much.

Simon Weber

So Far, everything is going great. I enjoy the work environment and the people I am collaborating with. I have been working hard everyday with Teledyne RDI and have enjoyed the valuable knowledge I have received. I have been working with the Solidworks CAD software and have been working on modeling a DVS, an underwater measurement system. I have just completed the assembly and hope to get these parts manufactured. I hope to continue working on my project and enjoy this great opportunity you have given me.

Irving Torres

I have spent around four weeks at SeaBotix. Everything is going well at the internship. I have been learning a lot about work environments. I have also been learning about under water sea robots and how they work and what it takes to make them.

I have been learning how to serialize and test different types of circuit boards. I have also been building test stations for testing different boards in the robots to make sure they function properly.

I have learned a lot of things from this internship. I am really happy to have been given this opportunity.

Kate Newcomb

Everything has been going great.

i have been working on sediment analysis for a while now (Hubbs). i have been shown how to feed the fishes, replace footbathes and more. i cleaned a few yellowtail tanks and the halibut raceways. i helped on the day they had a huge fish move..another project i've been working with is making fish traps and i have been left in charge of getting it done. and many other things as well. so things are going great.

Anthony Tran

I am very much enjoying my internship at the Scripps Whale Acoustics Lab. Everyone here is really helpful, and friendly. My main task during this internship is sorting through humpback data from Punto Pescadero in Baja California. I am analyzing their calls: what time of day they called, what the high and low frequencies of the calls were, how the calls evolved over the season etc. After examining the data, I will do a presentation about my findings, and write a report. I look forward to sharing my observations. This internship has been a memorable experience. Thank you so much for organizing this program!

Devyn Stewart

Working at Merkel and Associates has been great so far. I've definitely enjoyed the past few weeks working there. The people at the company have been very helpful and I have learned quite a bit from them. At the office I have been mostly working on the High Energy Lab and the Benthic Lab. For the H.E. Lab, I've learned about hazardous calerpa algae. I have done different experiments using algaecide and observed and rated the calerpa. For the Benthic Lab, I was given a crash course in sorting. Using microscopes, we take benthic samples collected from seashores and sort all the microscopic animals into different phylums and animal groups. Aside from office work, there is also plenty of fieldwork. So far for fieldwork, I have done two wetland delineations, one in Imperial Beach and one in Chula Vista. Two weeks ago, I was at the office by 6:00 in the morning. Five other employees and I went up to Bolsa Chica State Beach in Newport Beach to go out on a boat and catch animal samples using nets. Last week I was taken up to Ramona to set some turtle traps in two freshwater ponds. I wore waders for the first time and got to walk around in chest-high water without getting wet. Recently I went out on a boat in San Diego Bay to certain areas to scan the bottom for traces of Eel grass. We went to places that would have been strictly off limits if we didn’t have permission from the military. Overall the internship has exposed me to some environmental aspects I never knew about before. It has been a great experience.

William Zhang

Everything is going great. I'm having a really great time. I really like my boss, Eddie Kisfaludy, and it seems like he has a lot of knowledge and is excited about sharing it with us. Unfortunately, he was fighting for us to go out on the boats, and, SIO told him no, and, that is where we were learning the most. Finally, he got it approved. Thank you for this opportunity.

Eric Whitaker

I apologize for my belated response but I have been very busy working at Fugro. I have worked with all sorts of new software which I am not sure if I may disclose. I hope to exceed Fugro's expectations with my work ethic and motivation. So far I have created easily over 70 graphs, digitized parts of the torres strait, and completed an engineering software program training course. I hope to have been Fugro's best intern to date and hope to leave a lasting impression.

George Santellano

Everything at Sidus is going great. The people there are very friendly and always willing to help. By now, it's the fourth week and things are still a little new to me. I have been doing a ton of research for an upcoming product they are hoping to manufacture. Along side with research, I have also been doing some CAD work and helping out with extra stuff such as build kits and wiring bread boards. Only two more short weeks to go.

Kathleen Doan-Ha

I have just finished my fifth week as an intern at InterOcean Systems, and everything is going great. It has been a great experience so far not only because I am learning new skills, but because I have learned that it is a great responsibility to work at a full time job. All of my coworkers are friendly and helpful and there is a good attitude at InterOcean Systems.

The first week started off slow with a lot of busy work like filing papers, which was pretty boring and I was getting worried that the whole six weeks would be like that. But after the first week I began helping out in the machine shop and the welding shop, where I got to do a lot of hands on work. I have been helping build two winches that will eventually be used on a boat to haul up underwater instruments. The work consists of a variety of tasks including grinding, sanding, drilling, and assembling parts for the winches. It is pretty hard work and I come home dirtier than I have ever been, covered in dirt, dust, and grime. Even though it has been a lot of physical work, I have really enjoyed working at InterOcean Systems so far and I am sure that my last week will be even better.

Thomas Rode

I just finished my six-week internship at Seektech. While there I was working with two other interns to design a low-cost heliostat with a magnetic drive. I was using solid works to design the body of the heliostat, and I made the arms with metal bars that I bent with a bender. I did a lot of research on heliostats, magnetic drives, and coordination of heliostat mirrors. It was somewhat hard, mostly because it was my first job. But everyone there was very friendly and helped me with anything I need. After this internship I am seriously considering becoming an engineer.

Mike Gorney