Dropping Out of the NASA Internship Program and Competition

It kills me to know that I have to drop out of the NASA internship program and competition because I cannot continue my education in the college I am currently attending.

For my internship, I haven't told my boss the heartbreaking news yet. (I'll most likely e-mail that to him during winter break.)

I was surprised to get recommended for this internship by the president of the Astronomy Club, since we only knew each other for a couple of days.

The president of the Astronomy Club found me on Facebook trying to offer freelance work to a video game designer. As soon as he learned that I was a computer engineer with an artistic mind, he told me that his boss was looking for someone like me.

I was even more surprised to learn about the internship opportunity from his boss the day after we chatted on Facebook. The internship I was offered was to research on data and scientific visualization, as well as to collaborate with various majors at my college and various NASA employees at JPL, Pasadena.

Before I graduated high school, my biomedical science teacher expressed how she's fascinated with how visual data can help the scientific community understand and discover information. Knowing that I'm an artist and scientist, she recommended data and scientific visualization designing.

I wish I could continue my internship. I have yet to visit JPL, attend workshops, and create a spectacular project based on my research.

As for the competition, everyone in my team knows about my departure.

I found out about the competition through an e-mail sent by a faculty member. As an aspiring engineer, I saw this competition as an opportunity for me to work with an engineering team and to create realistic CADs (computer-aided designs) - things that I haven't done in class yet.

It was nice to form the team, attend the first team meeting, and find a faculty member to lead the group.

Since I have to transfer colleges, I will strive to find other related opportunities.

I really hope that my experience with NASA doesn't end here at my college.

Someday, I will become an engineer for NASA and GoogleX.

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