A Yellow Goodbye

This week I gave my final presentation, cueing the end of my AP Research project. It’s amazing to believe that I have accomplished such a task. Not only is this the longest paper I have ever written, it is also the most impressive. I have written the equivalent of an undergraduate senior research paper, as a high school senior. I think I learned a lot about time management as well.

This year, I was given a lot of freedom in what I was doing. My classes were more theoretical and required more discussion, thus less homework, and I was taking less classes all together. I learned that I have a lot of free time, and not enough hobbies to fill it with. But I also learned how to enjoy the work I was doing. Given all my free time, I actually began to look forward to doing my homework and doing my research, which to me, was the greatest thing that could come from senior year. This year taught me how to enjoy school and how to enjoy the things I was learning, rather than just doing them blindly. It felt good to be doing my research because I wanted to, and I think because of my freedom I was more likely to do things effectively. I learned how to do things on my own time, and when to do them. My teacher was very helpful in assigning a timeline that I think was very effective. The only thing that I think would have been a little better would be more time to implement our research, because I would have liked to do more with my research but I was limited due to the time span. But I think our timeline was pushed back because of our proposal, which was ultimately worth it.

While a lot of things weren’t perfect this year, the feeling of completion of this project is. While I’m happy to have completed such an enormous task, it’s also a little bit of a relief to no longer have to speak about how industrialization influenced the portrayal of synesthesia in Russian and American literature during the late 19th and early 20th century. Eight months is a long time to focus on such a narrow topic. It made me realize that doing intense research may not be the field for me. I want constant change and excitement so I’m going to need some different things in my life. I also really enjoy talking to people and research doesn’t entirely lend itself to that task.

In the end, what I found the best part of this experience was the knowledge that I gained. All of the research resulting in a better understanding of synesthesia, has helped me realize that I want to continue learning. I want to know more about the world and about everything, but I don’t necessarily want to be finding that information myself. I want to recite that information to others, but I’d rather be learning new things all the time and talking about them. I can imagine myself working for some science company, like Space X or Solar City, as a marketing representative or something, but not actually doing the science and research. I’m glad that I learned that now though, and not later in life.

Overall, I’m so grateful to have been given the opportunity to learn so much. I’m happy to be done, but sad to be moving on from such a huge part of my life. It’s a bittersweet ending, and in my opinion, a yellow goodbye.