Blog 7 - Second Interview Preparation

One of the places my mentor used to volunteer at were the La Brea Tar Pits, where he soon discovered that he wanted to specialize in the ancient horses that were being uncovered there.

1.    Who is your mentor and where do they work?  If their workplace does not reflect their expertise, what makes them an expert?

- My mentor is Dr. Eric Scott and he works in the San Bernardino County Museum.

2.    What five questions will you ask them about their background?

1.        What did you study in college in both your undergraduate and graduate years? How do these study areas relate to paleontology?
2.        How long have you been a Paleontologist? Where have you worked?
3.        How long have you worked in the San Bernardino County Museum and why did you begin work here in the first place?
4.        Do you feel that your work experience reflects your expertise in Paleontology? Why so?
5.        In your opinion, what makes someone an expert in Paleontology? Why?

Blog 6 - Advisory Prep

This is one very wise and cute turtle.

1. What has worked well for you concerning senior project this year?  What has made it a positive experience for you?  

- So far, what has worked well for me as far as the senior project goes is my mentorship because my mentor is an extremely nice person and we both contact each other ahead of time to set up days for me to go to the San Bernardino County Museum. Also, the fact that my mentor takes time out of his work to show me really cool fossils, like the brown fragment of a Timber wolf femur that he published an article about (its one of my sources), always reminds of how awesome my topic is.

The fossil I talked about is the one in the center. As one can see, the interesting thing about it is the fact that its quite obvious that it was the result of an injury, yet the animal it belonged lived long enough for the bone to heal which is suggested by its roughness. Cool right!

2. What are you finding difficult concerning senior project?  How can you adapt to make that portion work better for you?  How might the senior team help?

- The really difficult part of senior project for me so far is coming up with an idea of what I can do for my first independent component, because I've looked for any possible classes I can take and I've found absolutely nothing so I can perhaps talk a lot more with my mentor about this so he could help me brainstorm ideas. On this point, it would be very helpful if the senior team could perhaps give examples of what past seniors have done, explain it to me, or even help me brainstorm ideas.

Blog 5 - Interview 1 Reflection

Chris Pratt is amazing. That must have been a hilarious interview.

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  Is there anything I would do differently for other interviews?

- The most important thing that I learned in this interview is that I need to work on my skills as an interviewer, so that next time I can engage my interviewee a lot more than I did during this interview.

2. Did I get additional resources and contacts?  What is the most useful?  Why?

- My interviewee, Dr. Scott, didn't give me multiple contacts, but he did tell me that he could put me in touch with a Biology professor at CSU San Bernardino called Stuart Sumida. Dr. Scott also told me that I should look into the works of two paleoartists called Greg Paul and Mark Hallet for possible sources of information. I think that contact with Dr. Sumida would be more useful to my project, because I was told by Dr. Scott that he could give me a lot of information about restoring prehistoric animals, which is an area I'm leaning towards for my project, or he could put me in touch with paleoartists who could show me how they use fossil evidence to portray extinct creatures as they do.

3. What makes my interviewee qualified to help me? 

- Dr. Scott is qualified to help me because he's spent around 24 years working as a Curator of Paleontology for the San Bernardino County Museum, which means that he most definitely has a lot of connections with other paleontologists. Also, Dr. Scott has made significant finds during his career as a paleontologist, which makes him a great source of information about paleontology in general, and he's known around the country for his work with prehistoric horses (he's even been invited to Africa to look at a huge deposit of horse fossils). 

Interview Audio Recording

Blog 4 - House Advisory Prep 1

Good ole Tyrannosaurus Rex providing you with some hilarious advice.

Write a short explanation of what you are hoping to accomplish through your senior project topic.

- As a little boy, I was in love with dinosaurs and I could never fully satisfy my curiosity about them. Later on, I learned that Paleontologists study dinosaurs and some time after that, I learned that the word Paleontology (the field of science a Paleontologist works in) meant "the study of ancient life," so obviously that meant that dinosaurs weren't they only creatures studied. Consequently, my goal now for my senior project is to deepen my understanding of Paleontology as a field through my experience with it. In addition, I remember my mentor, Dr. Eric Scott, once telling me over the summer that at one point of his experience as a volunteer at the La Brea Tar Pits, he decided that since none of the experts at the Tar Pits were specialized in ancient horses that he would specialize in horses. In short, I want to begin to uncover what exact aspect of the Paleontology of dinosaurs that I may want to specialize in someday. 

Progress on My Fossil

Please excuse the terrible quality of this picture, but I only have an iPhone 4 to take pictures with so it was the best I could do. Anyways, if you really squint hard and look at where my dental pick tool is pointing, you could see the three protrusions that are part of the fossil. Also, if you look at the right side of the fossil you can see a tan looking rock then you can see the part of the fossil that I chipped off by accident. My progress this time has gone positively well! I usually love to speculate what this fossil could be and so far my head screams lower or upper jaw because of the way the three protrusions are in a "U/V" formation. Who knows, only time and more dirt scrapping will tell. I just can't wait to see what it turns out to be. 

Blog 3 - First Interview Preparation

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  Why?

- I plan on interviewing my mentor because I believe that he'd be able to provide me with information that could give me an idea of where I want my senior project to go.

2.  Five questions will be assigned to all seniors to ask.  What additional questions do you plan to ask?

- In your job, what do you do with the fossils you obtain after they've been taken out of their plaster jacket? As a curator for the museum, what are your responsibilities?