College summers are not like the classic summers you have after a year of high school. When it comes to high school summers, you simply take a break from a year of school work and enjoy a nice three month break. You simply wait for next year to start and enjoy the company of your friends and family, or at least thats what I always did. College is a tad different as in you are always trying to get a foot up on the next year whether its taking classes or getting a little experience in the workforce. I decided to get a little experience, but sometimes things don’t always go your way.
Within a week of being done with school, I jumped on a Boeing 757 and was headed to the middle of know where Midland, Texas aka oil land. I was accepted into Schlumberger’s (it is a french name and its pronounced schlum-ber-jay, not schlum-burger fyi: its ok I did the same thing) sophomore program called Field Camp, where we toured their various facilities. Schlumberger is one of the top oil services company that provides data collection, drilling tools, fracking supplies and multiple other services for the entire drilling process to various oil companies. Their recruitment staff planned a full trip for us to see various pieces of their company. Our first trip was to an actual drilling rig out in Midland. We were able to look at the actual drill, drill bits, drill waste, and their data collection office. Schlumberger was hired to this project to simply collect data for the drilling crew so that the drilling crew could reach their drilling location accurately. Every day we went to a different location to see different kinds of jobs that Schlumberger offers. I really enjoyed the experience based on the fact that reading about these different jobs like wirelining, cementing and fracking is completely different then actually being there and watching the crews perform these tasks. The whole experience in a whole was very eye opening and it definitely continued my desire to work for them or another oil company once I graduate.
After my lovely trip to midland ended, I was able to fly home and enjoy not having much to do except enjoy myself. My plan was to stay for a couple weeks and then return to USC to start doing research for one of my professors from Freshmen year; like I said earlier though, sometimes plans don’t always go the way you want them too. Once I finally returned and took my research safety course, I was able to meet with my professor and talk about our upcoming research opportunities. I was so excited to getting back to doing something in the lab especially since last semester was my final lab course. I finally met with my professor to hear some good news, but also some very bad news. The good news was that my professor had plenty of things for me to do, but at the same time, the graduate student I was doing research with ended having to return to her home country to renew her visa. From that day on, I have simply been playing the waiting game to hear back from her and my professor. Luckily, when she returns, I can continue my research throughout the semester.
Another plus is that, with all this free time, I have been able to enjoy my last free summer and continue with my dream of learning to program. While I was very excited to do research this summer, sometimes you have to be able to adjust on your feet and find pluses out of minues. While I can’t do research, I have the time to get back in shape after my shoulder surgery, learn some Python, and meet all different kinds of people. The icing on the cake though is the vacation my family is taking to Antigua. So while my summer has had its downs, I was able to at least get some work experience while also enjoying my summer and learning some cool new things.
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This is both fun and learning. What an event. 🙂