My name is Kyle Bauman, and I am part of the Freshwater@UW summer research program. I’m from a small town called Grafton, located in Wisconsin, and have been attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the past 3 years, and will be graduating in Spring of 2025. Through the Freshwater@UW program, I have learned interpersonal communication skills, an example life of working on research as a graduate student, and how to problem solve in a very independent fashion in regards to research and science. I’ve had the great opportunity to reach out to local Wisconsin businesses (specifically farms) to try to collect local, raw data. This has allowed me to connect on a more personal level with some of the people and establishments that most of us take for granted on any given day. This project also has shown me how some graduate research projects function. Before being granted this opportunity, I had never done any research for a university that was not through a classroom setting, this was the first independent research project that I have had the opportunity to work on. By completing this experience, I feel as I have gained much more knowledge on what graduate school life would look like and how some of the independent projects associated with that phase of school would look like. Throughout the whole program, I believe my problem-solving skills grew the most. This project was very independent, and I had to use my prior knowledge and science background to figure out how to complete a project that no one has completed before. This required many problem-solving skills, if one path didn’t work, I’d have to figure out a new one until it did work. This will be so helpful for future class work and especially future career-based circumstances.
I chose to participate in this research study to see what life would look like within the hard science field. I wanted first hand experience with lab work and data collection and analysis to see if it would be something that I wanted to continue to pursue for a career. I also was really excited with the idea of learning under someone who was interested in similar concepts and goals that I was, and learning with other people my age and forming connections based off of common interests. While I was placed virtually in Milwaukee and most of the researchers were based on campus at UW-Madison, I still feel like I formed some connections that will last. During our first couple of days on the job at orientation, I was able to meet many different people, all with common interests, but all who were from different parts of the world. Talking to them and connecting with them really created a sense of community among all of the interns this summer.
I know that this opportunity has helped shape what I want to do moving forward in life. I came in to this program wanting to work on interpersonal skills because I was thinking about going to law school post-graduation and working towards becoming an environmental lawyer, and I think through this program I was able to do just that.