This is our first How I Work with a studentand what a student.
This is how she works.
I am a high school senior who moonlights as an exoplanet researcher.
Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars beyond our own solar system.
Take us through a recent school day.
Next, in chemistry class, I took notes during a lecture on electrochemistry.
I then went to my last period government class and took my quiz on court cases.
Im just going to say it: I love spreadsheets.
What are your plans for college?
I will be attending Harvard in the fall as part of the class of 2023.
So far, its my favorite language for quantitatively analyzing images and data.
Spreadsheets (both Excel and Google Sheets):
Im just going to say it: I love spreadsheets.
My first major science fair project in 7th grade was a mathematical model built in a spreadsheet.
Grammarly:
The Grammarly Chrome extensions is great because it will spell check across most text fields in Chrome.
Its especially helpful in Google Docs, which I use all the time for school assignments, and emails.
Zotero:
I use Zotero to store and organize the journal articles I use for research.
Whats your workspace setup like?
I am constantly relocating depending on my schedule that day.
Whats your favorite shortcut or hack?
I love keyboard shortcuts.
My favorites are the classics.
One work habit I have thats absolutely essential is keeping a research notebook.
I keep one for each year of my project.
The first is that it helps me catalog my procedures.
One really important (and often under-appreciated) aspect of good science is reproducibility.
Keeping track of your procedures can also help you catch mistakes.
We all make mistakes.
Keeping a notebook is also really valuable at tracking the development of your thoughts over time.
(This is the idea that is the very foundation of my last two years of research.)
How do you keep track of what you have to do?
To-do lists are huge.
I keep a visual to-do of assignments with deadlines in my google calendar.
I organize assignments into different calendars by topic or class.
I also have a rolling to-do list in my phone notes of miscellaneous tasks or tasks with flexible deadlines.
I start by figuring out my daily schedule and then create time blocks around it.
Whats your favorite side project?
Its not a side project, its more of a main project.
We write and teach environmental STEM lessons to local elementary schools.
We target elementary schools in our school district with high proportions of low-income and at-risk students.
Since the club was founded in 2014, we have taught nearly 800 fifth graders.
We teach two to four lessons in each elementary school classroom per school year.
What are you currently reading, or what do you recommend?
I recommendThe Glass Universeby Dava Sobel.
Can you share a music playlist youve made, whether for working or elsewhere?
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
