 I'm Sharon and I'm a geology major at the University of Montana, western. When I was younger, the phrase I used most often was, did you know? Insert any fact about the natural world. Though I don't use that phrase quite as much anymore, that curiosity and awe has stuck with me into adulthood. This internship at neon allows me to be part of a larger community of people doing their best to understand the natural world and it's an amazing experience to be part of that. A lot of problems in today's world are best understood spatially. I may be a little biased but I think I have the coolest internship at neon. I get to create maps using GIS or geographic information systems. GIS connects geography with data using a computer. This allows people to track changes, analyze those changes and predict future events. By creating these maps, scientists at neon will be able to utilize them in order to store, share and visualize information related to climate change, land use and invasive species. If there's anything that I know about learning, at least for me anyway, it's that experiential learning is the best type of learning. The reason I applied for the internship is because I wanted to get that real experience. The reason I applied for neon is because it's such a huge project that is incredibly beneficial to our understanding of climate change. This experience has been more about applying the skills that I had before and honing them and improving upon them and that is happening because unlike GIS classes or assignments that I've had before, I really care about what I'm doing right now and so I spend a lot of time and energy into making it perfect. So this job has given me more of an insight into what a day-to-day job in a field like this is like. There's also so many other avenues I haven't explored, so more internships.