So the trip to Lafayette was much more informal than I thought it would be. It was really crowded and sometimes hard to hear the people that were talking, but I do like that only one to three people were able to listen to me at once. It would have been more nerve-wracking to have a lot of people listening, which is what I thought it would be like. I didn’t get much feedback from the other students, other then that they appreciated my project and liked where I was going with it. It also made me feel a lot better to know that people had the same amount of progress as me, because I had been nervous that I wasn’t far enough along. I was a little disappointed that there weren’t more facilitators walking around that could give us feedback; I think I met only two. I did enjoy looking at the other projects and seeing what other students were doing.
I did think it was helpful to talk to people about my project and explain my process verbally. It helped me realize which parts of my research I was strongest at and which parts I needed to work on or learn more about. I noticed that some of my graphs were hard to see, and that others were two large and couldn’t be seen without scrolling. I think that altogether the trip was successful and I know what I need to work on and where I need to go from here.