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Spark of Hope

Posted by Michael Hutchins Posted on: 04/22/08

Spark of Hope

It seems that every year I spend my fall and early winter preparing and sending out applications for one thing or another. Four Falls ago I was stressing and worrying over applications to college, Two falls ago I forged through the mountains of paperwork involved with study abroad and last fall I slogged through six applications for physics research positions for this summer.

While the college and study abroad applications ran smoothly the internships have not. At first there was the several month lull between submitting papers, pdfs and transcripts until finally I started to hear back.

The first was a rejection from Caltech, fine I was not sure I wanted to be in the L.A. region anyway.

Then a few more rejections came in cutting out Oregon and the south bay. Well there is till Washington I thought.

Whiletravelingamidst Europe I heard back from the two universities in Washington, neither required my presence.

Now one is left. The previous five were through the NSF REU program so there was about ten to fifteen spaces for the several hundred applicants. The others gave a window of about two weeks in which they would send out acceptance e-mails (one actually sent a real letter). This last one has a window of one to three months. At least such a broad window keeps the spark of hope alive.

The last one is NASA.

When I filled out my applications last fall I filled out the one for NASA just so I would not regret never applying to work at NASA, I did not expect to get in. In fact it was my weakest application in my eyes. I also expect it to be much more popular then Universities in Washington and Oregon.

Except for a small optimistic part of me I do not expect to get in.

I now look forward to my four months of pure uninterrupted Summer.

My last Summer.

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