The sixth featured ‘day in the life of’ post is from Cari who is the cofounder of the podcast Bugs&Stuff and is the face behind the Instagram super_cari & the blog http://www.ritzenresearch.wordpress.com.
A day in the life of Cari (Masters student):
Hello everyone! I’m Cari, a second year Masters student (finishing up in August!) at Bowling Green State University in Ohio! I study how micronutrients (e.g. calcium, zinc, etc.) in the leaf litter can impact the abundance of litter-dwelling invertebrates, namely detritivores and predators. I really enjoy science education, communication, and podcasts. I spend a dumb amount of time listening to podcast when identifying bugs under the microscope. I recently decided to combine my loves in to a podcast called Bugs&Stuff. Co-founded/produced/hosted by my lovely labmate, Caitlin, the podcast is now heavy on the stuff, and light on the bugs. But most of the stuff relates to grad school processes that aren’t usually talked about and so many students enter grad school without knowing what’s ahead of them. So, I spend a lot of time working on that! But I spend most of my time these days editing my thesis or a collaborative piece I’m doing with my labmates.
8:53am: A late start due to a late night of editing, but not too shabby! This is my first view every morning as I feed my grumpy little Irwin!
9:09am: The breakfast of champions? To be honest, it’s totally my favorite breakfast. Sometimes I even eat it as a sandwich. No shame.
9:38am: Finally at my desk and ready to work! Starting off the day by editing a paper! But Friday’s are coffee days, so I cant even be mad. Especially when I get to use my cool new bug cup!
10:46am: Over the summer I collected thousands of bugs that needed to be counted and identified. Some of them I was able to do while my experiment was in progress, but because of that they were never placed in smaller tubes. So now to help clean up the lab, I need to condense my samples for easier storage.
12:23pm: Lab meeting pizza lunch! There’s a lot to wrap up after the end of the semester, especially when you’ve got four masters students graduating! A great time when your advisors literally the best AND supplies the pizza 🙂
1:08pm: Back at it. Cleaning tubes and moving bugs! Also, cleaning up our sample room in general. Things get wildly unorganized when you’ve got five people doing research at one time.
3:26pm: The lab is now clean and beautiful! Well, that’s not entirely true, there’s still a little organizing to do, but it’s good enough for today.
4:08pm: Now back to my computer only to find a million and a half email I missed while cleaning. I completely underestimated the number of emails I’d get in a day when I started grad school.
4:14pm: Edits, edits, edits. Seriously, this is what I do all the time now.
5:56pm: Seriously the most important thing I ever do. ALWAYS back up your files in multiple places. Especially if your computer’s on its way out like mine is.
6:31pm: On Fridays I like to treat myself to some take out. More often that not, it’s Chipotle. They have AMAZING sofritas!
8:01pm: Now it’s time for everyone’s favorite hour: Wine and Statistics! Because when you’ve been working with R for months on your data trying to get it just right, you need wine to make it through.
9:56pm: Our local Kroger (grocery store) has been updating for a while now. I heard they had gotten CLOTHES! So, naturally I had to wonder around a little bit and buy some snacks.
11:04pm: Finally, I watch Friends until I fall asleep.
I hope you enjoyed the relatable and detailed insight into Cari’s busy day- Don’t forget to check out her blog & podcasts!
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