Looking back on my summer in Göttingen, I learned so much about the world, research, and myself. I will carry these lessons with me throughout my career as a research scientist and as I move through the world as a person.

I learned that the principles of research and the best practices in one lab remain largely unchanged throughout the entire global research community. While there are differences from lab to lab, which is to be expected, they ultimately arrive at the same fundamental research process. This is encouraging because it means that reproducible science comes from all over the world, with people from around the globe asking diverse questions that are shaped my their individual lived experience. I also gained an appreciation for work-life balance that is more prevalent in European labs, which reinforced for me the idea that your research can only happen if you are in the right headspace to do it.

This experience also gave me confidence that in my post-graduate experiences, I will be successful in building a community in an entirely new city. One of the most daunting parts of post-graduation life is finding community without the guide-rails of living in dorms and freshman orientations. This summer I was completely alone in a new country, and I managed to find people that made the experience special, for whom I am eternally grateful. It gave me the personal skills that I will need to find these relationships wherever my research will take me next.

On one of my last few days in Göttingen, I got all of my friends from the summer together for one last event. People from my lab, that I met in the gym, and even some strangers came together on one of the bigger lawns on campus to play yard games. We all then went to get Döner, a staple fast food in Germany, one last time. Seeing the life that I had built in Göttingen in front of my eyes made the subsequent goodbye feel impossible.

On my last night in Germany, I said my last goodbye to one of my closest friends from the summer, walking around the lake near the Guesthouse where I was staying. Both of us moving onto new chapters of life, we got to have one final moment to reflect on all we had learned. Of everything I learned this summer, be it about research or language, the most impactful things I have learned are things I have learned from my friends and that above all, it is the people that make the place special.

The sunset on my last night in Göttingen.