Molding Young Minds

2009-03-13 14:26:55.000 – Brian Clark,  Observer and Meteorologist

Unrelated to this comment, but very pretty

For most people that get the opportunity, spending time on Mount Washington during the winter is a very memorable experience and often one not easily or quickly forgotten. After my internship during the winter of 2006 (and before I knew for sure that I would be coming back as a full time observer a year later), that was certainly the case for me.

If you read these observer comments on a somewhat regular basis, you know that we recently had two separate groups of 12 German students stay with us for a week at a time each. These groups perform research and experiments while here, and also more generally come for the experience. Both groups ended up being a lot of fun to have around and get to know, but there were several people within the groups that stuck out more than others. One of these folks was named Jens (pronounced like, “yens”) and was part of the first group of students.

Not only was Jens quite the character and fun to be around, but he struck me as one of those aforementioned people that took a lot away from his winter experience on Mount Washington. That hypothesis was recently confirmed by a couple photos I saw of Jens on Facebook, the uber popular social networking site that several of the German students have used to keep in contact with me and other staff:

Before (captioned “MWO for life”)

After (captioned “yes, for life”)

Clearly the Observatory and this mountain have had a positive influence in molding this young man’s mind.

Brian Clark,  Observer and Meteorologist