I don't think I've ever been happier to see Pensacola. These last five weeks have been very exhausting, physically and mentally. UWF however, was as beautiful as always, even in the pouring rain. My favorite rain day, was when we got to go out with a conservation biologist to learn about Pensacola's storm water run-off. I liked that we were able to watch the water flowing through the storm drains, over roads, and ultimately into the creek. we got to see first hand how the pollutants and lack of a riparian zone impacted the once healthy creek. We also got to do some interesting beach geomorphology using both an A-frame and the Engineers method, it was really cool to see how the dunes change with winds and storms that frequent the area. And we got to take a trip out to the EPA lab on Pensacola Beach. We got to see some of the ongoing projects they were working on as well as some new projects and an awesome tour around the lab, which included a close call with some lightning!
Overall, knowing what I know now from these five weeks, I would definitely recommend this course to other underclassman at UWF. But this course was very rocky and seemed like more times than one plans fell through, and there was a lot more animosity than I would've thought there would be, but that's all part of being a scientist. Weather and mechanical issues are something I will always be facing and I may not like everyone that I'm on a research cruise with. This course showed me that I am meant to be in this field, no matter how many people think that I'm troubled or not good enough and no matter what stands in my way.
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