I am, as Karen can attest to, a fairly indecisive person when it comes to my future. I worry a lot about whether I’m making the right choice, the what-ifs and alternative possibilities always seeming like they might be just as good. The Polaris Project has helped me make some of these decisions that I’ve been facing. I’ve been thinking pretty seriously about graduate school after I graduate this year, but there’s always been a niggling concern that maybe it would be too much, that I wouldn’t enjoy it or wouldn’t be worth it. Polaris Project has expelled this particular doubt.

The field work we’ve done in Siberia was at times intense or frustrating, but the rewards so far outweigh those brief lows that I can’t imagine wanting to do anything else. This was truly a life changing experience, just as advertised. Max did an amazing job organizing a team of great PI’s, who have all helped me to think more scientifically, to communicate better and exposed me to new methods and techniques of going about the science. I’d guess that all of us students, even if we aren’t all planning to go on to do research per se, have come out of this project better scientists and communicators, motivated to find out more about the Arctic and to spread the word about what we’ve learned.