Internship Week One

On Monday, May 17th I began my internship in the entomology department of the San Diego Natural History Museum. I arrived at the museum at 9:30 AM to meet my mentor, Jim Berrian. He spoke to me about what I would be doing, then gave me a tour of the different departments of the museum. We went through collections, which was amazing because there are so many insects I have never seen before. We also went to herpetology, which is also called "the dungeon", all the way down the museum stairs. There they have jars and jars of specimens they are preserving. When we returned to the labs I met the other volunteers. Jim showed me how I was to perform my task of separating insects from miscellaneous, into their specific order. This is what I did the rest of Monday and Tuesday until another applicant entered the lab. A student wanted to learn what he would be able to do during the summer, but Jim was busy. That left me in charge of showing the student the project. This was fun and easy to do because I had just gotten the same thing the day before. I taught him how to perform my task and I even let him try it out. After he knew what to do, I showed him some collections the other volunteers were working on. One of the collections was of beetles that are shiny. It's amazing because there are so many colors and the atlas beetle is something you really wouldn't want to mess with. The third day of work was more of sorting the insects, but I am finally getting used to it. Things were beginning to move more smoothly, and I'm building stronger relationships with the other volunteers and employees. Lunch was fun because I met up with several other HTHCV students. My fourth day on the job, I got a taste of something else. The entomology department was getting prepared for Bio Blitz, an annual mass collection in the San Diego area. Since entomology would be collection many specimens, they needed many vials to store them in. That's where I came in. I prepared 461 vials by filling trays with the vials, filling the vials with alcohol, placing a label in each vial (which I had someone help me with), and capping them all. The task took roughly two hours to complete, it felt so good to have it all done. After this task I got back to my work from the previous three days. I'm gaining so much work experience and knowledge from the volunteers, employees and the exhibits. Just have to wait for next week.