College of Architecture and Planning
3 A Framework for Wildfire Resilience for Utility Planning in the Western Interconnection
Hayden Mattingly and Divya Chandrasekhar
Faculty Mentor: Divya Chandrasekhar (City & Metropolitan Planning, University of Utah)
I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned from my wonderful undergraduate research experience, and something future undergraduate researchers should learn from, came from keeping the work and research in front of you and not worrying about the conclusions and lessons until the end. To all aspiring researchers out there, the work you do is the rewarding part. I know personally, I wanted to think of a poster, conclusion, and essentially a whole master’s thesis a couple of weeks into the project, but that’s just not what it’s about. You’re going to have to a lot of data cleaning, a lot of monotonous work, some things that might not seem fun or rewarding, but when I look back that’s the most important work I did.
For me personally I did my project on wildfire research. I wanted to look at company grids and regulations. I wanted to immediately ask about our research questions on specific regulations and their implementation techniques but realistically that’s not how it played out. I had to be patient, we needed to lay a better foundation for our work and we needed to do the small steps now so that down the road we get the results I was so eager to get in the beginning. Realistically I spent a majority of time looking at a spreadsheet, or looking for company contacts for future connections in future phases of the project. It was tedious at first, but the work I did then is what’s going to pay off the most in the future. This was an important lesson for me to learn that I hope everyone in my shoes can eventually learn. Sometimes the work is tough, and doesn’t feel rewarding, but that’s the most important work you do. I hope everyone that does this program learns to appreciate the small monotony and tediousness that comes with work this important. Eventually when everything comes all together it will be well worth it.
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