OA Staff Summer Series: Changing Times
Hi I am Ben, a trip leader at OA. This summer has been kind of bittersweet for me. I just finished my senior year, but I need one more semester to finish up a Geography minor and a GIS certificate. Since it’s my last summer before I graduate college, I’ve been cheering on friends and colleagues who are graduating and trying to connect with as many of them as I can before they spread around the country to start their lives. I went back to my hometown to work at a local pizza place I've been at for a few years on and off. While working, I've been a part of an (sadly) online internship with Argonne National Lab. They are a government lab, a part of the Dept. of Energy, and have a huge campus in the Chicago suburbs where they do any and all kinds of science. I am a meteorology major and have been working with their environmental science division, providing daily weather forecasts and coding up plots of data they collected.
Once my internship is done, I’ll finally be able to enjoy some vacation time. COVID cancelled one of my fav summer activities, traveling to see Phish, my favorite band. But this year tour is back on schedule and I'll be able to see them for 3 nights, one of them being on my birthday! For my final summer adventure before the semester starts, my girlfriend and I are driving to Missoula, Montana to visit an old friend of ours and explore some national parks along the way!
“I’ve been climbing at a local climbing gym all summer, so I'm really looking forward to making the routes for our new Rec bouldering wall, as well as participating on our usual climbing trip!”