This summer was by far the best of my life. Not only did I start the MSBA program, which so far has been a blast, but I also got to live out my dream of working at NASA. I was an intern at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where I worked on an open source scientific processing platform called SciSpark.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or JPL, is the top center for robotic exploration of the solar system. It began in 1936, when a group of graduate students from the California Institute of Technology decided to put their personal reputations – and safety – on the line to perform experiments with rockets, which were seen as mere science fiction instead of a serious academic subject at the time. JPL has now sent spacecraft to every planet in our solar system, and informs much of what we understand about our universe today.

Coming from a computer science background, I was put on a team developing open source software that will help scientists model Earth’s climate 10-100x faster than the previous leading platform that could be used for this (Apache Hadoop). This faster speed makes interactive data exploration possible, allowing scientists to make crucial discoveries in a fraction of the time. In this process, I worked with the top people in their fields from meteorologists to computer scientists to assess how to best serve the people who could benefit from this software.

While I cannot count the number of things I loved about this internship, there are a few highlights that I want to experience again as I decide what to do after I graduate from this program. First, I want to end up on a team with excellent mentors who want me to continue learning as much as I can. At JPL, my questions were always met with kindness and helpful explanations. One of my mentors even helped me to study some research papers in her field that I was new to and interested in. While I love being a student and cringe at the prospect of giving up the schedule of lectures and tech talks that fill my weeks, if I can find a place like this in the future it won’t be so difficult to leave college.

Second, I took a step towards being the change I wanted to see in the world with this internship. Giving people better tools to address climate change is something I imagine I will look back on when I am 80 years old and still be proud of myself for. While every job has its challenges, it is much easier to power through them when you know there will be a huge impact for others when you do.

Many of us in the MSBA program still have much to discover about what we want to spend our 40+ hours a week doing after graduation. My takeaway from this internship going forward is that when you are passionate about what you do and work with great people, those hours don’t seem like work at all. While all of our paths will be different and our criteria for choosing a job will vary dramatically, I hope that we all find careers that make us excited to go to work every morning.

– Valerie Roth