Internship Spotlight: Angelo Tarzona '21, Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM)
Angelo Tarzona '21 is the summer watershed coordinator at the Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM), where he is gaining firsthand experience working with watershed health and GIS.
Major:
Internship title and location:
Summer watershed coordinator, Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM) at Dickinson College.
How I got this internship:
I have been working as a watershed coordinator during the academic year since fall 2018. I learned about this opportunity within my colleagues and full-time staff.
What I do, day to day:
We start our day at ALLARM by having daily morning round-ups. During that time, we talk about the status of our projects and check in with the full-time staff to see if they have other activities/projects for us. For the last two months, I have been working on compiling fact sheets, guidebooks and handbooks about volunteer retention, engagement and policies throughout the citizen science organizations. For this project, we aim to narrow best practices for our citizen science organizations and have an effective way to handle our wonderful volunteer monitors. Also, I have been working on creating a map through geographic information system (GIS) for our volunteer monitors in Columbia County to show them the land use and geology in their area.
Other internships:
For the future, I plan to get into a research experience for undergraduates that deals with hydrogeology, environmental geophysics and/or a citizen science organization.
Most valuable part of this experience:
The most valuable part of this internship experience is learning how to take constructive comments and using this as a benchmark for direction on my projects.
Advice for students considering internships:
Always ask questions. You do not know everything in this world. Your peers and colleagues are there to help you and give you feedback whenever you need it.
How this internship has helped me:
For fall 2019, I will be taking a GIS class, and this internship helped me prepare for that class by knowing the basic use of Arc GIS Pro.
Post-Dickinson plans:
I plan to further my education by pursuing a master's program for geophysics focusing on critical zones.
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Published August 14, 2019