By Ju Chulakadabba ‘19

We did a full run-through of our public presentation for the first time. Everything did not go well as what we expected, but we did learn where to improve. We were working really hard with help from our professor and TAs. Everyone didn’t really have time to eat much in the past few days. Our TAs and professors offered to cook for us a couple of times. For dinner, it was a little bit more special. They offered to make a BBQ dinner. They grilled meat, tofu, vegetables, pineapples, and bananas with Hawaiian BBQ sauce. They were really good and powered us through the last push before our presentation.

As I already mentioned, we were super busy, so I forgot to take pictures of the final food. Anyhow, I did have some pictures of us chopping the vegetables. There was a funny quote from Josh ‘19. He said vegetable consumption rate of people here during TREX could be more than his consumption for the entire semester.

After the BBQ, we continued working based on the comments and feedback we got in the morning and did have another run-through by ourselves. The presentation got a bit better, but it still could be improved. Some of us decided to stay up late, since this was our last night before the presentation. Everyone was somewhat stressed. We kept practicing the talk and editing the slides together. We knew everything was going to be okay.

Every year, a group of MIT students and professors travel to the Big Island of Hawaii to gain fieldwork experience through TREX (Traveling Research Environmental EXperiences). The first TREX trip was held in 2000, and since launching has taken students on research activities in domestic and international settings. For more undergraduate opportunities, click here.