 Hello everyone from wherever you're joining. Thank you for being here today for this panel event on student opportunities with NCAR, UCAR and UCP. My name is Dan and I'm an education specialist here at the National Center for Atmospheric Research or NCAR, which is a world-leading organization dedicated to understanding our system science. And that includes our atmosphere, climate, weather, the sun, and the importance of all of these systems to our society. I'm really glad to be with you all today for this conversation with internship program leads, as well as former student participants who will discuss everything from scientific research opportunities here, the mentorship aspects of our programs, and what it's like to be an intern. So throughout this event, you'll be able to ask questions and engage with interactive polls through Slido. So if you scroll down this webpage a bit, you can see the Slido window just below where you are seeing the live stream video of this event. And if you haven't already, go ahead and click on the green join event button. And then you can ask questions on the Q&A tab and answer poll questions on the polls tab, both of which are found in that blue bar across the top. And definitely be sure to join Slido so you can add your thoughts to our workload question. What type of science interests you most? Because we're gonna get to that really soon. Now we're also gonna try and respond to some of your questions through Slido. So if your question isn't answered live, definitely check if we've directly responded to it via text. And this panel discussion is also going to be recorded and we will share it out through the NCAR Explorer Series website. Now, before we get to the results of that workload, let's quickly meet our panelists. So let's go in the order of Jerry, Kadevia, Virginia, Aaron and Christopher. Hello, everyone. Glad you could join us today. I'm Jerry Sikoni and I'm the NCAR Education and Outreach Student Program Coordinator. I coordinate, lead or co-lead the NCAR Earth System Science Internship or NECI, the GVP Bridge Program, which is new for 2022, the Undergraduate Leadership Workshop, the Professional Development Workshop Series, and all of these you'll hear more about shortly. I also work alongside my colleagues here to recruit students for our many programs at science society meetings, including ACES, SOCNES, AGU, AMS and others. Greetings, everyone. My name is Kadevia Tiero and I am the Principal Investigator and Program Lead for the SOARS Program, Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research in Science. And we are all here to talk about the opportunities available for all types of students. Thank you. Hi, everyone. My name is Virginia Doe. I use the She, Her pronouns. I am the Higher Education Specialist here in the Computational Information Systems Lab. And I am also the Cypherx Director. Nice to meet you. Hi, everyone. My name is Erin. My pronouns are She, Her. I'm a Senior at Brown University and I am a Cypherx alum. Hi, everyone. I am Christopher Williams and I am a doctoral student at the University of Florida in the Geography Department. I'm also a SOARS alumnus. Awesome. Thanks, everybody. And with that, let's see the results of that work cloud question. So, Brett and Paul, would you be able to share a slider for us? All right. The one I see big in the middle, Meteorology, which makes total sense for wanting an internship at NCAR-UCAR. Atmospheric science, hydrology, climate, solar, aerosols, big data, career, ocean, physics, climate, astro-planetary. There's a lot of stuff on here. Anything jump out to our panelists? Is everybody through these? Yeah, I saw you unmuted. Yeah, all of these here really that are listed. NCAR internships touch on in some way, shape, or form. And so it's really great to see this that we're all on the same page here. And you may think of NCAR as a place that just does atmospheric science, but we really offer internships for so many different fields in Earth system science. So it's wonderful to see this. Great, thanks for sharing that. Oh, sorry, Candidia, go for it. Oh, I just noticed that there was career on there, which is awesome because these are all pathways, all the programs are pathways to the various careers in Earth system science. So it's not just atmosphere. Like Jerry said, it's everything else. And with that comic, Candidia, thanks for sharing the screen, Brett and Paul. Could you tell us a little bit about what the heck is an internship? Sure, great. What's an internship? Well, an internship is a professional opportunity and experience for most of the internships you can be paid, which means that you are being paid for your time, but also for your deliverables. So most of the internships have something that you'll have to produce multiple things in fact. I also wanted to add that internships are an opportunity to build relationships. Many times you'll be working with a team of mentors. So for example, you'll be able to learn from different types of people. An example of a team of mentors is, for example, you might have a writing mentor or you might have a computing mentor. And these are different people that you can go to for your research. In some cases, you may have a co-intern on your project, but if not, we have many opportunities for you to connect with other interns who are coming to NCAR-U-CAR-UCP. If you come to Boulder, you would be living with other interns in the student housing. We generally have around 50 interns across all programs. So you'll likely see them at weekly professional development sessions or at our end of summer poster symposium that Jerry coordinates. And he can tell you more about that. Thanks, Virginia. As Virginia said, I've talked about professional development. If you participate in one of our internship programs at NCAR-U-CAR-UCP, you'll have the opportunity to join weekly workshops to build your professional skills. Building these skills really help prepare you to be effective, communicating science and your research and also be successful on your academic and career paths. Workshop topics include, but aren't limited to, leadership training, diversity and equity inclusion workshops, proposal writing, data management and visualization. We also have workshops on resume, CV, cover, letter writing, science communication to help you prepare for your poster and oral presentation, which Kaditi had talked about as far as deliverables. And for our 11 week summer programs, all of these culminate with the end of summer poster symposium where students from across NCAR-U-CAR-UCP internships present their research to scientists, peers, family and friends in the form of a science poster. And you'll also have the opportunity to grow your professional network through cohort building and also by working with our scientists and staff. I'm going to go ahead here and share my screen here in a moment and we'll jump into a slide deck and I promise we won't bore you with too many slides so just give me one moment please. And as Jerry's pulling that up, definitely make sure you pop into your questions in the Slido and you can upvote questions that you're really interested in too so that way you make sure we answer those first. Okay, so you've probably now heard or seen the acronyms NCAR, UCAR, UCP. And so before we just jump into our internship programs, we'll talk about really what these stand for. And so NCAR as Dan said is the National Center for Atmospheric Research. It is a federally funded research and development center and it's managed by the Nonprofit University Corporation for Atmospheric Research or UCAR and it's funded by the National Science Foundation. UCAR members consist of over 120 colleges and universities from across North America that have programs in Earth System Science. And UCAR community programs or UCP is a division of UCAR that focuses on making sure science from NCAR and UCAR institutions is translated in novel ways to a variety of audiences and stakeholders. So we're gonna start off by talking about some of our programs that accept both undergraduate and graduate students. And now the first three programs, SOARS, Psyparks and Nessie, I'm gonna skip past for the moment and then we're gonna talk about them more in depth here in a few minutes. And I'm gonna jump into the first one here after those three, which is Unidata. And Unidata internship is housed in our Unidata lab. It offers students an opportunity to work with Unidata software engineers and scientists and on projects drawn from a wide variety of areas that overlap atmospheric and computational sciences. We also have the Boulder Space Weather Summer School and that program is hosted by the High Altitude Observatory or HAO Lab, which is a two week program that gives students a comprehensive introduction to the science of space weather, what it is, what it does and what can be done about it. Next, we'll talk about undergraduate specific programs and we'll start first with the HAO Boulder or High Altitude Observatory, as I said before, Boulder Program, which stands for broadening opportunities through leadership and diversity, which is designed for engineering students and focuses on electrical, optical, mechanical aerospace and software engineering. Next up in our Earth Observing Lab, the Summer Undergraduate Program for Engineering Research or SUPER, which is also designed for engineering students, where students help develop new instrumentation and work to improve EOL's existing suite of lower atmospheric observing facilities. Sticking with our EOL Lab, our next program is the TIP program or the Technical Internship Program, which provides unique experiences for students from two year colleges in vocational institutions with science, engineering and technical support for successful careers in technical fields, including electrical engineering and instrumentation. Last but not least, as part of our undergraduate-only programs is a one week immersion program called the Undergraduate Leadership Workshop or ULW. And this one week program gives undergraduate students a chance to explore careers in atmospheric sciences and really develop their leadership skills through leadership training, professional development and mentoring. As we jump to the right side of the screen, we'll talk a little bit more about our graduate-specific programs. And these programs range from week-long workshops to month-long visits. And first up is the Advanced Study Program or ASP Graduate Visitor Program, Graduate Visitor Program. Through the ASP Graduate Visitor Program, graduate students can come to NCAR for two to 12 months to work on a part of their thesis or equivalent final project with guidance from an NCAR scientist. And we typically sponsor about 25 students per year for the GVP. Next up is the ASP Bridge, which I had spoke about earlier when I did my introduction. And this is a new program that will be starting in 2022. And it's a shorter one month program for graduate students who want to learn more about NCAR before doing a full GVP fellowship. And what we do is we match students' interests with NCAR scientists and engineers. And so really it's like a mini graduate visitor program where participants work on small projects to determine if a longer fellowship might work for them. And as a result of this visit, some GVP Bridge participants will also be awarded a regular GVP fellowship to continue their work at NCAR either immediately or sometime in the future. We also have the ASP Colloquium. And these colloquia are designed for graduate students to learn about newer, rapidly developing areas of research that bring together graduate students and lecturers from NCAR and the community at large. Unfortunately, there will be no colloquium in 2022 but we'll resume again in 2023. Next up is the Next Generation Fellowship. And each year, UCAR selects three graduate students for fellowship tracks and earth system science, diversity inclusion and public policy. We have the Newkirk Fellowship, which is housed in HAO, which work with HAO scientists and engineers on projects related to their thesis or other research topics and have access to state-of-the-art observational and computational facilities in their thesis work. We have the Heliophysics Summer School, which is a one-week training. This is part of NASA's Living with a Star program and it focuses on the physics of space weather events that start at the sun and influence atmospheres, ionospheres, magnetospheres, and throughout the solar system. We also have the Najib E. Hallaby Fellowship, which is offered by the NCAR's Research Applications Laboratory, or RALLAB. This fellowship allows a student to spend three months in residence with RALS Aviation Weather Research Program. It is designed to help share the next generation of researchers in this important field. And we have the Rothschild-Garonne Fellowship. And participants of this fellowship will come for four months over a two-year time span to work with scientists in the atmospheric chemistry observations and modeling, or ACOMLAB, on a self-defined research project. We also have various tutorials, workshops, and visitor programs that are offered throughout the year, including the CESM workshop, the WARF tutorial, the MPASS tutorial, and the Bright Workshop. And we also have postdoctoral opportunities available. However, we really wanted this opportunity to spend on undergraduate and graduate student opportunities. So if you'd like to find out more about those opportunities, you can do so through the link, I believe we'll be able to provide in the chat, which support if you're there, education-outreach postdoctoral programs, and you can jump into that link and it shares all of our postdoctoral opportunities. I just would like to say that our programs open their application process at different times of the year, but for our summer programs and workshops, the application process opens up in the fall or winter. So a lot of them are opening up right now. So use the links provided to see, the link provided here at the bottom of this slide, to see individual program timelines. And if there isn't updated information currently on the program page, keep checking back over the coming weeks, surely that information will be provided. And so now we're gonna go ahead and highlight some of those programs that I had talked about at the very top of this slide, SOAR, PsyParks, and Nessie. And I'm gonna jump in and talk about Nessie quickly, which is one of the programs that I have the pleasure of leading. It is a newer internship that has only been around for a few years. It was branded as Nessie starting this past summer, which is the NCAR Earth System Science Internship. It's hosted by the NCAR Office of Education and Outreach and offers undergraduate and graduate students interested in Earth System Science an opportunity to conduct research with NCAR scientists from across all labs and on a wide range of topics including, but not limited to atmospheric science, computational science, engineering, and solar and space physics. It is an 11 week paid internship. Last summer we had seven students and this summer we'll be looking to accept 10 students. So we're growing this internship. We were virtual last year, but we're planning for this summer to either be fully in person or in hybrid. This program, like I said, matches students with mentors working in fields and projects that are of similar interest. And some of the projects that are possible are in mechanical engineering, water quality and air pollution, severe weather, space and solar physics, climate change and renewable energy and machine learning and AI. And participants are required to present a poster and oral presentation of their summer work at the end of the internship. For more information about the Nessie, you can contact me. My information is provided below. You can also click on that link that is provided. It has information about the Nessie program. We will be opening up the application process going into December and to January. And Khadidia, you're up next to talk about SOARS. Thank you, Jerry. Appreciate it. Good afternoon, everyone. SOARS, I mentioned before, the acronym means Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science. We are actually 25 years old. We were created as a response to systemic racism in the STEM disciplines. And we are focused on increasing the diversity in the atmospheric and related sciences as well as in career pathways. So what is SOARS? SOARS is a 11-week internship as well, like our colleagues have mentioned. It is a paid internship. You have the opportunity to be matched within any of the STEM disciplines with NCAR scientists and professionals as well as with NOAA and other national laboratories as well as the universities of Colorado at Boulder and Colorado State. We also provide professional development weekly as well as a scientific and communication writing workshop and a computation and data workshop. Those are all weekly. And then I spoke about deliverables before. Now you are being paid to work 32 hours with your research mentors, your writing mentors, your computation mentors, if you need help with coding and programming as well as a community coach and a peer mentor. And what are the things that you need to do to successfully complete this research internship? That is producing an abstract, producing a final paper, which gets published in NCAR's open repository, producing a poster, which you can present your research for at the end of the summer with other interns as well as for conferences. And you also get to speak about your research in a colloquium. Now, what are the other benefits? The other benefits are support for your research in presenting at conferences, orally or on paper. And we also offer GRE prep as well as last dollar tuition funding. So those are some of the things that you can expect and receive in SOARS. And just to let you know, we've been around, as I said before, for 25 years. And out of the 25 years, right now we have approximately 78 students currently enrolled in bachelor's, master's and doctoral degree programs. At least 212 bachelor's degrees have been completed. 132 alumni have completed master's level advanced degrees. 52 alumni have earned the doctoral degree and 48 are currently in PhD programs. We have a website, which is at the bottom of the slide at SOARS.ucar.edu. Our application is going to be available at the end of November, beginning of December. So look out for it. The application deadline will be February 1st, 2022. The cohort is approximately 20 students per summer. We were virtual last summer and the summer before, but we are anticipating being in-person with probably a hybrid option for partial virtual and remote distance learning. Thank you so much. And I'm gonna turn it over to Virginia. Hi everyone, again. I have the pleasure of speaking about the Cypherx internship program. Cypherx stands for Summer Internships and Parallel Computational Science. The goal of the Cypherx program is to make a long-term positive impact on the quality and diversity of the workforce needed to use and operate the 21st century supercomputers. I also wanna talk about the application process for Cypherx is a little bit different. We have our projects posted online. And so if you go and read through the different projects, you can see which one is most of most interest to you and you can apply to up to two projects. So our projects are open to sophomores and above, including graduate students. We are open to domestic as well as international students who are at US institutions. And so that means that you would have to have the proper work authorization available as an international student. Many of our disciplines are computation and computer science, mechanical engineering and electrical engineering and applied math and statistics. One thing I forgot to mention is that Cypherx is housed within the Computation and Inflammation Systems Lab. So we're kind of like the computer science lab of the organization of NCAR. Some additional items that you would get if you were selected is that you would pay for your travel to come to Boulder, we would pay for your housing for that or a stipend if this is a remote program. We really, really hope that the past years we were virtual, really hope to be in person for 2022. You get paid an hourly salary and it's a competitive and it's for 11 weeks. And then after your internship, depending on our budget, we may have money so that you can go and attend conferences such as a supercomputing conference, AMS or AGU. And so those are great opportunities for professional development. Typically we have 10 to 15 interns. This upcoming for 2022, we may have up to 20 interns. And one program I'd like to highlight is the CISL Outreach Diversity and Education, the Code Intern. This is a non-technical position and this is someone who might be a master's or graduate student in social work, higher education, student affairs. And so this person would be helping me and my team to help run the Cypherx program. Our applications are open now until January 10th. So go ahead and check out our website. And as a reminder, just some of the topics that the projects are about are machine learning, data science, software engineering, data assimilation, visualization and application optimization parallelization in high performance computing. Next slide, please. And we wanna let you know, we're gonna have a lot of fun along the way. We many times will do field trips and again, with the professional development you meet with the other interns weekly. And so it's a great way to build and expand your network. And I also wanted to make special notes that all of our programs seek to involve students from groups that are historically marginalized and underrepresented in the sciences, including black or African-American, American Indian or Native American, Alaska Native, Hispanic or Latinx, female, first generation college students, veterans, LGBTQ plus, students with disabilities. And we also encourage those who are seeking their first professional internship. Great, thanks so much for that overview. And going back to Jerry's first slide, there are tons of programs that are offered through NCAR UCAR and UCP that we can talk about today. And so with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Aaron and Christopher who are gonna share a bit about their experiences of being an intern here. Who wants to take it away first? Hi, Dan Chair, I'll get started. Awesome. So like a billowing cumulimbus cloud, my interest in meteorology steadily grew through the years since about middle school. Tropical cyclones or hurricanes in particular fascinated me as every so often they breast up against Georgia's coast and change school or workdays to fun days. This is from a kid's perspective. So as I reflect upon the squiggly yet meaningful path that I took to my current position as a geography PhD student, studying storms, society and how to reduce disaster risk at the University of Florida. I see an emphasis on process, on growth, on appreciating differences and lots of helping hands along the way. I remember Googling meteorology internships as a second year undergrad in the early 2000s. That simple move resulted in me learning about a dreamy program called SOARS. And Khadidia talked more about SOARS. So all expenses were paid, including travel from anywhere in the US to Colorado, lodging, public transportation passes, plus a generous stipend to get to work with professional scientists in real life laboratories at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. I learned that there would be lots of mentoring, support to present our work at conferences and accepted applicants could return for up to four summers to build upon their experiences. So I applied. I shared my interest in meteorology and hurricane. I also outlined my plan to transfer to an in-state meteorology degree granting institution to pursue a bachelor's degree in Earth and Atmospheric Science. A few months later, the SOARS program director sent a letter saying I did not get selected, but encouraged me to proceed with my transfer plan and to take some meteorology courses and apply again. And so that's what I did. I found an engaged and supportive department chair and faculty at my new university. When I prepared to apply to SOARS for the second time, the undergraduate coordinator helped review my application materials and offered constructive feedback. I felt buoyed by the encouragement and support given by my department and the SOARS staff. This time around, SOARS welcomed me to their newest cohort of interns. And I felt ecstatic. Even in my wildest imagination, I did not foresee the wonderful journey. The numerous follow-on opportunities like a full-time job and graduate school funding are the meaningful relationships that I developed along the way. What did the path look like to your internship, Erin? Yeah, so I am a side park, so I know Virginia talked about side parks. So it's a little bit more on the computer science side. So just everyone knows, I'm gonna say CS, that's just me saying computer science. But I'm actually a geology major, which was a little bit of an untraditional path to CS, but I actually took my first CS class about six months before I applied to side parks. I just took one on a whim. I really enjoyed it. I took another one. I was like, wow, I really wanna do CS this summer. And even though I definitely did not feel qualified at all to apply to anything CS related, I was searching for internship programs that were kind of at that intersection between CS and geology. And whenever I found side parks, I really felt like I found perfect internship even though it was at NCAR. So I knew atmospheric science would be kind of like what the CS was revolving around. So I was very interested in that. But also, it's paid, I get to do CS, all the other opportunities associated with side parks seem great. But I was like, this is a long shot. It's my first choice, but we'll see what happens. I will get my hopes up. So I worked really hard on my application. I went to my professors to read. I had a professor like read over my essays and give me feedback. I also went to the career lab and they looked at the resume and we edited it together. And then after applying about a month later, I think it was, I got an email from Virginia actually to schedule a phone interview. And I was honestly shocked. And then on that phone interview with my future mentors in Virginia, even though I did not know how to pronounce any Python libraries that I was talking about, I actually got the offer two weeks later. And I don't know, I was beyond excited as someone who didn't feel like they belonged in CS and kind of felt like I was an imposter in the field. It was really validating for me. And then for the actual time in the internship. So my project, basically NCAR has a programming language called NCL, but NCL is currently being kind of retired and we're transitioning to Python. But NCL has really great resources available such as a huge visualization library of like hundreds of visualizations of every type of visualization you would want to do in atmospheric science. And that doesn't exist in Python right now. So my project was actually continuing a project from the year before inside parks of recreating these visualizations in Python and then posting them online to basically recreate this gallery. But about the problem with recreating these visualizations of Python is that 30 lines of code in NCL is like 200 lines of code in Python. So I second half my project about how I think the summer, I kind of started working on basically wrapping everything I do in those 200 lines of Python into kind of one or two lines of code which is very similar to how NCL works. So that was a little bit more on the software engineering side which was really fun to explore something I definitely would have never had the opportunity to do outside of cyber parks. But beyond that kind of the day to day. So I would usually work in the morning, have some meetings and then work in the afternoon. But in terms of what those meetings looked like every day once a week I would meet with my mentors, my mentors are only like a couple of years older than me. So it's really fun to talk to them about, you know how they got to where they are today, how they chose to go or not go to grad school all those sorts of questions. I also got to meet with the larger team I was a part of and other interns. So I'm part of the Geocat team. So I had a few other people that were like unofficially mentors that I helped me throughout the summer. And then I had two other interns that worked really closely with me at the summer. We helped each other a lot. It was really fun. I professionally developed me once a week. So my resume for example has been set since the summer. So when I'm applying for jobs right now I don't have to tell you about which is really exciting. And then we also had a lot of social interactions which we had a lot of games. I got to meet all the other people in side parks and it was very fun. But, you know, that was kind of my experience. So Christopher, what was, what did you work on in Source? Thanks for sharing that, Erin. That was really interesting. So in Source, I got to enjoy three separate summers as a Source intern. My first summer I got to work in NCAR's Atmospheric Chemistry Lab on a project comparing Mexico City pollution simulations and observations. Then in my second summer I worked offsite at NOAA's Hurricane Research Division in Miami, Florida where we explored tropical cyclone contribution to annual global rainfall. And my most recent summer in Source occurred virtually in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. And I benefited from the expertise and guidance of a team of science mentors from across NCAR in addition to my graduate advisor at the University of Florida. So this past summer in 2020 I got to advance my thesis research by examining risk perception and intended behavior for tornado sheltering before enduring the COVID-19 pandemic. However, research experience is not the only thing I gained through my internship with Source and very similar to you, Erin. We had professional development and lots of socialization opportunities. I also want to mention the generous stipend that Source provided positively contrasted with what I would likely earn during summertime jobs back home. I learned how to write and present my work in writing and communication workshops and receive individual feedback from a writing and communication mentor. Also, I learned about programming languages such as Python during the data computation workshops. During the evenings and weekends, the interns often gathered informally to relax our exercise. Are we planned fun trips to explore and enjoy the mountains or cultural events in Denver? When I researched offsite in Florida, some of the interns roadtripped from Miami down to Key West and we embarked on a snorkeling adventure. So that was really memorable too. After the summer, Source offered opportunities for me to travel and present my research at professional conferences like the annual American Meteorological Meeting. And these conferences further exposed me to a host of researchers, educators, institutions and different possibilities within the field. All along the way, I developed working relationships and friendships, connections and networks that I imagined will only continue to strengthen and grow. I also wanna mention that the experiences and connections formed during my internship played a key role even after the summer internships officially concluded. So, and I have a couple of examples for that. When I wanted to enter the workforce rather than continue on to graduate school right after earning my bachelor's degree, it was the year 2008 and it fell smack in the middle of the Great Recession. And so that was pretty tough. I remember informing my network that I was looking for employment opportunities. The source director connected me with scientists in NCAR's research application laboratory that were looking to hire an associate scientist to help with a new project. And during the interview, I highlighted the different meteorology courses I took during undergrad. I talked about my source research experience with NOAA's Hurricane Research Division. And I presented at a conference like AMS. And so I was offered that job and I felt really, really excited and grateful to receive a full-time job offer in a difficult job market. So I stayed in that role and contributed to numerous different projects through the years. And then in 2019, I was finally ready to apply for graduate programs. And once again, source was really instrumental. The source staff and the alumni network helped me navigate the process. They listened, they offered potential contact suggestions and they reviewed my application materials. Source also helped me access GRE preparation tools. It was through NCAR's director of education and outreach and former source director that I learned about University of Florida professor that was seeking a hazards geography research assistant and student. So I did not know what hazards geography meant, but once I learned that we'd be working at the intersection of storms in society on things like vulnerability and resilience, I was fully dialed in. So he turned out to be my graduate advisor. I really enjoyed working with him. And I had previously mentioned how I got to return to source during 2020 and work on my thesis research. In another wonderful twist, one of my source science mentors from that summer joined my thesis committee as a special member. So I am happy to share that I successfully defended my thesis and graduated with my master's degree this past August. Thank you. And maybe you can sense a theme or a pattern, but that's not the end. My advisor offered me doctoral funding and an opportunity to join him and NCAR colleagues on a convergence research project as a part of NCAR's early career faculty innovator program. So I accepted the offer. There are lots of reasons to accept it and I'm so excited about it. So like the way that I felt when I initially was accepted into source back in 2007, I have this very similar feeling now. I feel ecstatic again about the possibilities and the opportunities that await. So Erin, where have you gone since PsyParks? Yeah, so this is my little joke. I haven't gone too far because I actually got my internship extended through December. At the end of my internship, I really wanted to continue what I was doing. So I got extended and I still look at NCAR, which is super great. And I'm actually getting to present at AGU, fully funded by PsyParks in December, which is a first for me. So very exciting. But I think for me, PsyParks big picture wise has really taught me that, I can do what I want to do in terms of CS. Like I don't really feel that I'm not qualified anymore. I feel like, I can be that software developer that I want to be. I really feel like PsyParks has not only prepared me for my time after graduation, but really improved my confidence in both professional settings and in the computer science realm. So it's been a really positive impact, I think, on the whole rest of my life, just for one separate. But with that, I will hand it back to you, Dan. Awesome. Thanks, Erin and Chris, for so much for sharing your stories. So we have 20 minutes left and I definitely want to make sure we have enough time to answer all the great questions that have been coming in. So panel, let's go ahead and turn your videos back on. And I'm going to start with the top voted one right now. What makes a good internship application, especially if a person hasn't had any prior experience with research or internships? And that also ties it a bit in with the second part, Teresa's question, what makes it an RU internship applicant exceptional? Who wants to tackle that one? I can try it. Well, for SOAR's applications, we really put a lot of weight with your own words, with your essays about leadership and about diversity and how it's affected you. Of course, we do require transcript and we do require recommendations, but they're not weighted as heavily. We know that sometimes recommendations can be biased and so we don't rely solely on recommendations and we don't rely solely on transcripts. I mean, yes, there is a 3.0 minimum. However, there have been cases where people have been successful in SOAR's with less than the 3.0. So I would just encourage everyone to think about what it is that they want to do. You don't have to have any prior research experience to participate. I also want to make a note that from side parts we don't have that 3.0 GP requirement, but really think about how you can contribute to the cohort because we will have approximately 15 to 20 interns and so what kind of unique contributions can you bring to the group? Yeah, and I could jump in to really read through the requirements of the application. Make sure that you're touching on all the things because all of our internship programs kind of ask for slightly different things. There is some overlap in what we do ask for, but there are differences for sure. So make sure you're not just kind of glancing through and that you're taking time to read through these requirements and checking them off appropriately. And like Virginia said, we want to know who you are. We want to know what makes you a good fit for this program. So don't be scared to tell that to us. Great, and moving to our next question. What is one piece of advice for students who are looking to become atmospheric scientists? And I will maybe expand that out to our systems in general because I see a couple of questions further down too about maybe folks that are not necessarily in atmospheric science and meteorology who are looking to come into atmospheric science and meteorology. So who wants to tackle that one? I can start off by just saying, stay open-minded a little bit. When I started my meteorology degree and I started way back in the day and jumped away for a while and then came back to it. But when I first started going into meteorology, similarly to Christopher, I grew up in South Florida. Hurricanes were what sparked my interest into meteorology. I had visions of working at the National Hurricane Center or being on TV at the Weather Channel or doing something like that. And then over time, that had changed. And part of that is because I really didn't know all of the available parts of our system science and the meteorology that was out there for me. And as I started learning more of that, I learned for me that I really enjoyed working with students. And so in this role, I've been able to take my meteorology degree and that background and join it with my love for working with students and the internship programs that we have at NCAR. So yeah, my answer would be just to stay open-minded and see everything that is out there. Look to see what kind of options there are for you out there. I would just like to add to what Jerry said. That being open is very important. Oftentimes, internship opportunities let you know something you don't wanna do. So it's all about trying it and seeing it that's something that continues to spark your interest or keep you in the STEM world. And so there's opportunities. You may not like your first research project, but then you have an opportunity to choose what type of research you'd like to do and we do everything we can to match you to the type of experience that you wanna have. And internships are an opportunity to learn. So keep asking questions. It's okay that you make mistakes. Just keep learning. I'd also add to share your experiences and your questions with people around you because I found in my journey, I knew what I was interested in, but I didn't know the name, that people are professionals used to call it. So for example, I didn't know that Hazard's Geography existed as a field, but I knew that I was interested in the things that Hazard Geographers do. And so as I shared my interest to other people, they were able to point me to that specific field. I think that's a great point, Christopher, when I was finishing my meteorology degree and at Metro State here in Denver, and I started working as a student assistant at NCAR, I had started and as a student assistant in RAL on our research applications lab doing work on snow variability and coding, a lot of coding. And I really realized the coding wasn't for me. It's perfect for many people. All the people enjoyed it wasn't for me. I wasn't enjoying it and I reached out to my mentor and boss and said, I love working here, but I just don't know if this is a good fit for me. And he pointed me in the direction of going into some, working with some of the summer programs at NCAR. And that's where I realized that I love doing that. So if you're doing something that you're not so happy with doing and you don't feel it's a good fit for you, be vocal about that. Say maybe this isn't the right direction for you and look to see which ways that you can go, what other options there are for you. Awesome. And I might punt this next question to Erin and Christopher. What is your favorite thing about working for NCAR and UCAR? I can start. I think definitely I think, I'm trying to give how to phrase this professionally, but the atmosphere, that's a good part. The atmosphere at NCAR, UCAR is, I mean, it's like, I think the perfect balance between professional and casual. Like I never felt intimidated to go into a meeting. I always felt very welcomed and I also was provided like so many opportunities and I felt, I don't know, like I could take them if that makes sense. So I just feel like the welcoming environment is what really, I wasn't expecting to love the most about my internship, but it was such a significant part for me. I would say one of my favorite things. At times I would be like, wow, I'm really getting paid to be here and to do this. And it just seemed unreal because I was enjoying it so much. There's so much interesting work that goes on at NCAR and so many talented people. I have to say it's the work and the people that makes it so special for me. Right, so this next question I might combine with a couple of different ones. So I'm majoring in atmospheric science with a minor in astronomy. Have you had any projects where atmospheric and space science are combined? And maybe we can expand this out to maybe the types of research that we do in general here at NCAR, UCAR, because further down the list, I also see questions about combining space physics and computer science, going into oceanic science, environmental science and policy. So can anybody speak a little bit to, what are the different research opportunities that we do have here at NCAR and UCAR? I can jump in if that's okay. We, as you may have heard, as we went through our slides and talked about our programs, NCAR has seven labs across the organization. All of our labs do slightly different things within Earth System Science. And so yeah, there absolutely are opportunities. If you heard me talk about the High Altitude Observatory Lab, the HAO Lab. So space and solar physics is some of the work being done there. And then specifically within the NECI internship that I talked about that I had the pleasure of leading. This past summer, we had one student who was a graduate student from Brigham Young University. And they were, they have a background in geology, but also in space and solar physics. Had didn't have that much background in meteorology, but we were able to accept a student because they were a great student. And we really liked the work that they were interested in and thought it was new and innovative. And so this student came to NCAR, oh well, virtually came to NCAR over the summer, participated in the NECI and did work on simulating the atmosphere of Mars, which really has never been done before and worked with scientists at NCAR to be able to try to produce what a Mars atmosphere looks like. And so this was really cool, innovative work. Like I said, I had never been done before. And so, yeah, we definitely have opportunities. And even if it hasn't really been touched on that research, we might be able to find scientists who are willing to pair with you to try something new. I'd just like to add to that as well. Thank you, Jerry. We do have scientists at HAO as well as other scientists that we work with at NOAA and CU that do engineering. And so we did have a electrical engineering major working on a CubeSat satellite, which is a space. And we had somebody working on the other end with space and solar physics, who is now actually doing graduate work in aerospace engineering at CU. So it definitely is possible because there are scientists in this realm and Boulder is where they happen to live and do their work. So there's definitely opportunities for space and volcanic science as well as upper atmosphere, lower atmosphere, troposphere, all of those spheres that I'm learning about myself. Awesome. So this next question, what opportunities are there for a first year undergraduate with no experience? I can take that as well. You know, application to SOARS, you don't have to have a certain amount of prior knowledge. I mean, the program definitely is rigorous. So you might want to consider how much science and math you have. Most STEM fields require a bit of science and math because it is a rigorous internship, all of the internships, you are actually doing a lot of work which those classes will prepare you. So, you know, we're not gonna turn anyone away, but we may suggest you take additional classes in math and science. But, you know, there have been people who are rising sophomores who have been participants in the program. Yeah, we also have, I mentioned the undergraduate leadership workshop. And so, if maybe you don't have that background of a lot of science and math yet, you're a freshman or sophomore and maybe don't feel comfortable yet diving right into an NCAR internship that's, you know, 11 weeks and throws you into a lot of research, you can consider doing something like the ULW which is a one-week long intensive program where we bring atmospheric scientists, students from across the country together and help build leadership skills and really prepare you for taking on that in the future. So, can consider the ULW. Yeah, and sticking with this kind of theme, I guess, sort of, I don't want to use the word eligibility because that sounds very exclusionary. But there's a lot of questions in here about international opportunities for international students that are studying at U.S. institutions. So, would y'all be able to quickly cover what are some of NCAR UCAR's policies maybe for international folks? And then there's also questions specifically about doing something remotely outside of the U.S. So, I can tackle that. Four side parks specifically. And I believe, I mean, also in campus is Nessie. Because we are NSF funded, we do allow international students who are at U.S. institutions with proper work authorization. So many times if you're an F1 visa student, you will have to work the proper work authorization. But just check with your international student advisor at your school to see if you are eligible for working at the U.S. The reason for that is because we need to pay you. And so we wanna make sure that you're getting paid. We don't wanna you to be working for free. Yes, thanks, Virginia. And there are some programs that we have for graduate students like fellowships to where we accept students that go to university overseas. So most of our undergraduate programs, yes, as Virginia said, you have to have the F1 visa and make sure that you're in compliance here since you're gonna be paid in the United States. But we do have opportunities for international students and it's really primarily for graduate students and beyond. If you're curious about that, check out the links that we provided. You can check each program and find out what their requirements are and whether you're able to be a part of that program. And for course, you could be an international student with a permanent residency green card. You have to be a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident. And you cannot have a bachelor's degree. You can have an associate's degree, but not a bachelor's. But however, once you are in the program, you can come for up to four summers. As Christopher mentioned, you can come when you're in graduate school as well. Great, and I wanna ask a question actually a little bit further down for Aaron and Christopher. What was the most stark difference between researching maybe as a grad student or an undergrad and researching at NCAR and UCAR? You know, for me, I think the thing that first comes to mind is the pay, it's much, yeah, grad school, the stipends, while I'm grateful for them, sometimes they're modest and working at NCAR definitely made a bigger difference in that aspect. I will say, I think that it was, I was really, I noticed not so much the differences, but I think about the similarities. So I know that, you know, as I worked at NCAR, it kind of felt like a continuation of university research. And, you know, for both many of the methodologies and the methods are the same in both, we're writing reports and republishing, doing peer reviewed publishing. And I think, you know, just like at universities, NCAR hosts these workshops and seminars where researchers and visiting scholars come and share their work and help educate others. So it really looks similar to me in that respect. Yeah, I will admit, I honestly have never done research at my underground institution, but I will say one thing that's, I think a big difference is structure. I know just from like a lot of, like how research at least is structured at my school is very much like you put your hours in, but it's like whenever you want, it's very free flowing and a lot of students I think really struggle with that. But, you know, side parks, we set working hours, you know, I knew exactly what time I was getting off each day and it really, I don't know, as someone who I really like structure, I like that system a lot better. I'll also add to that, because I think one thing that's different about NCAR is, you know, NCAR has this research aviation facility, they have aircraft and there's the high performance computing or supercomputer up in Wyoming. And the types of problems, I know some universities have access to aircraft and to supercomputers and they also address complicated or complex problems. But I think at NCAR, the scope and I guess the degree of access just seemed different. Things seemed a lot closer or more accessible. Great, and we're pushing up against time a little bit, but I wanted to at least ask the next top graded question. Are there any internships or scholarships offered to students if so, what's the application process? I can jump in and so internships, yes, we've talked about a lot of them today and all of the internships kind of have different requirements. So go ahead and check out those websites, those links that we provided and see what those are, spend some time going through them, reading through them fully. As far as scholarships, we do not offer any scholarships through NCAR. We do offer a pretty competitive pay for, I think it's pretty competitive to participate or stipend to participate in our programs. And I would just offer that you have somebody read your application before you submit it, just so that you may be so familiar with it that you may not catch certain things, but also be sure that what you're turning in is for that specific program. One thing that is not a good look is to have other programs in your application when you're applying for a different program. It just does not show that you are meticulous about your work. So I would just suggest that you have somebody else, other eyes are always helpful and to be sure that you're applying for what program you say you're applying for. Thanks for saying that, Candidia, because I think all three of us can attest that we every year get applications to where they're addressed to a different organization. And on that fun note, we might have to wrap up a little bit. I do want to quickly touch on maybe a couple of themes that I still see in the questions and chat. Really one big thing that I hope you can take away from this panel discussion is that the earth system science really encompasses a lot of different disciplines. So even if you're not coming into this with a degree specifically in atmosphere science and meteorology, there's still tons of things for you able to do in physics and chemistry. The earth system really encompasses a lot of different stuff. And so this is something you're interested in, really just thinking about the system science classes, I think is really a really great way to get into this. And then a couple of folks are also asking about maybe making contacts. Our scientists at NCAR are actually super nice. So if you do some research and maybe find an email and reach out to them and kind of explain who you are and what your research interests are, more than likely they will happily respond to you. And so with that, I just definitely want to thank everybody for being here. Kadevia, Virginia, Jerry, Erin, Christopher, thank you so much for sharing all your knowledge. I also want to thank our team behind the scenes. So Paul, Brett, Alia and Marisa, thanks for supporting the event today. And if you're interested in more NCAR Explore series events definitely check out our website. You can see past recordings as well as upcoming events. And I hope to see y'all next time. You know, I hope you have a great rest of your day. So see ya.