My practicum site was at the Applied Motion Lab at the University of Minnesota, through the NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program. I was working under the supervision of Professor Stephen J. Guy and Zach Chavis, a 5th-year PhD student. From the start of freshman year, I knew that I wanted to get involved in research, and while looking for programs to apply to, I found the NSF REU site that contained a list of sites accepting applications for research interns. At first, I didn’t know what specific area I would be interested in, so I read the websites corresponding to each site and narrowed down my options from there based on the research project proposals. I would advise that any future SGC Scholars who are also looking to apply to REUs take advantage of the writing center at UMD; they helped polish my personal statements, which became a distinguishing factor in my application. I would also advise that you should just apply, even if you don’t think you are qualified enough to do the research. Many of the people that I met in the program also had a set of skills that didn’t necessarily match up to the research that they were doing, but still made progress by learning a lot of skills on the fly and being adaptable. What matters is the amount of interest you demonstrate in the field, so when applying, consider even reading published papers on the subject to build up knowledge and pinpoint exact areas that you are interested in. During my research internship, I worked on a lot of the “grunt work,” which consisted of data analysis, model training, and building simulators to validate the behavior of the model. The graduate student I was working with and my professor were the guiding forces behind the project; they came up with approaches to the research question and outlined tasks for me to complete. The first couple of weeks consisted of onboarding, where I was working on the Colab notebooks that the professor designed for his graduate students when they joined the lab. Additionally, we had weekly meetings as part of the REU program, where the PI of the REU program presented aspects of research and introduced us to what pursuing a PhD would look like and entail. At the end of the program, we presented our work at the undergraduate research symposium hosted at the University of Minnesota. As part of the experience, I learned a lot about the scientific process and how it differs between different subfields within CS research. What they all have in common, though, is the rigorous testing and intensive analysis of the data collected, where every detail of the project is meticulously analyzed. I also learned that the findings of science occur through the collaboration of researchers from different fields, ranging from kinesiology to mechanical engineering. I gained an appreciation of how science addresses concerns of society. For example, the collected data from participants in a study must abide by the privacy policies, and each human-centered study design must be approved by the IRB to ensure the research conducted is ethical and abides by the values set by the institution. A lot of the research conducted is also specifically aimed at improving the quality of life of people in society, or an inquiry into measuring or finding methods to mitigate the harm that current technological advances have on society. Through the program, it also opened a path for me in academia, where now I am considering getting at least a master’s degree and potentially pursuing a PhD after graduating. A lot of the courses I am currently taking are more specific to the field of robotics, where I aim to gain a deeper and more cohesive understanding. Although my original career plan is still a potential path for me to pursue, it has expanded the possibilities of other paths I can go down. In the future, I hope to have a career that has more aspects of research in it, such as a research career in the industry.