Kimberly Hall: How to Kill your Laptop in 8 Weeks Without Really Trying
You know when you grumpily look at younger generations and look at them in shame because they cannot seem to get off those dang technological devices? You sit there and wonder how they would make it through a day, maybe even an hour, if all cell towers magically stopped working and there was a worldwide outage. Ultimate mania would be unleashed, sirens would be whaling, and flare guns would be shot into the sky. Is that just me? Am I the only grumpy one? Eight weeks into the program taught me how necessary having a laptop was in the midst of an online research program that was also in the midst of a pandemic. I am now one of those technology dependent beings that older generations turn their noses at, and I found out the hard way when a crisis arose.
Being a part of a research program amid a pandemic was something I would have never expected for myself. I was one of five students chosen for the REU program at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, and I was supposed to spend my summer in New York working with ecologists from all across the globe conducting research with the help of mentors. My summer was going to end with a research symposium where us REU students were going to present our work in front of our families, peers, and a panel of ecologists. Unfortunately, I was not able to go to New York due to COVID-19, and the program was virtual. I spent much of my summer on Zoom calls like it was my nine-to-five job, and my work continued to haunt my dreams well-into the night. For ten weeks, I conducted my own research, attended required workshops, contributed to weekly lab meetings, and met with my mentor twice a week all virtually.
I depended on my laptop (I named it Burt) more than I ever had before, and everything was fine until my eighth week in the program. A week and a half before my symposium presentation, my lifeline was lost (Oh, how young Burt was). I started this week doing my usual busy routine. I watched the sun rise every morning as I started my work and consistently missed the sun set in the evenings because my eyes were glued to my laptop screen until it would show that it was the next day. In a continuous cycle of work, eat, sleep, that was my norm, and each day was planned to a T.
Because I was so precise with how I worked and spent my time this summer, I hardly ran into issues that could not be fixed within a few minutes with the help of my mentor or just a quick handy-dandy Google search. As the summer progressed, I was gaining knowledge, networking, and meeting my deadlines for each assignment, so I was feeling like I was on top of the world. Unfortunately, that feeling would quickly shift to a rollercoaster-like decline when we began having to code on the software, R. R is an ancient program that could be in the same category as dial-up. That category where it is so old that the kids today have no clue what it is, and the older folks have to crank the gears in their brains to even remember that it existed.
R is a software that most of the mentors in my REU program had not learned to use until they were working towards their theses in graduate school. R is a whole different language that has to be learned, and the basics do not come in an easy tutorial. More often than not, I spent my days looking at R Studio and constantly was seconds away from going cross-eyed looking at all the coding that I had to learn how to compute. Throughout the summer, I had many trials and tribulations with R, but I was proud of the progress that I was making, and I had begun to think that I was getting the hang of it. Apparently, I had also spoke too soon and would soon meet my worst nightmare that could ever occur in a virtual world. See, R Studio is a cold-blooded laptop killer.
Without any prior warning, I found out that harsh software like R is not personal computer friendly, and I had been bamboozled. I had been told that R would work perfectly fine on my laptop. They were wrong, and I found out the hard way how wrong they were. Less than a week before my presentation, R crashed my laptop. I could not use my laptop for more than ten minutes without it shutting down 15 times in a row. I lost my progress in R, my papers, and my homework assignments in my summer courses. My laptop became a piece of junk, and I still had to work around fixing this problem I was having.
In the end, I managed to become a Google pro. I quickly panicked to Google University, my old trustee, where I managed to get my laptop back up and running. I knew I had to be quick on my feet with the first idea that came to mind. By up and running, I mean that I managed to troubleshoot my laptop just long enough to bring it back to life for 45 minutes while I conducted intensive research on a new laptop that I hoped would make it through graduate school with me. My biggest problem with my laptop dying on me was that I knew that I could not afford to slack off with my previous bad luck saga I had experienced earlier in the summer.
In comparison to other issues in the world, my dilemma could be deemed miniscule, but it taught me to roll with the punches. I managed to work on my research at work and using my iPad until I could get my lifeline back. I never missed a deadline and presented my research to about , even if I was turning my last few assignments in at 11:59 PM the last night of the program. RIP Burt and hello Burt Jr.
Kimberly Hall is a Lander University Senior that is majoring in Biology with a genetic emphasis and a Media and Communication minor from Orangeburg, South Carolina. After graduating in spring of 2022, she plans to pursue her Master’s in Public Health with a concentration Epidemiology. Leaving the small town of Orangeburg to come to Lander University has allowed her to branch out, get involved, and find her path in life.