DISPATCH | The mountains and metropolis: exploring Salt Lake City

As I write this, I am sitting in my University of Utah dorm, illuminated by the massive window that shines into our common area and kitchen. Right outside the dorm is a busy local road, on which cars are perpetually passing by. Beyond that, a small, green-speckled mountain watches over us all.

Such a view is typical of Salt Lake City, where nature and society are never far apart. I’ve been here for a little over two weeks for a Computer Science Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) run by the University of Utah, titled “Trust and Reproducibility in Intelligent Computation.” In this time, I, along with my cohort of a dozen undergraduates, have been taking classes on weekday mornings and wandering the city in the evenings.

For now, we’re getting a taste of different areas of computer science research through lectures and hands-on projects. In a week, we’ll transition to specific projects with faculty once we’ve gotten a sense of what we want to work on. The theme of the REU — trust — and its exploratory nature, as someone who has little coding experience and is undecided about her major, were what drew me here. I’ve loved hearing about the wide array of things people are researching — cryptography, theoretical machine learning, human-computer interaction. Nonetheless, I’m excited to spend time diving into a more specialized area to gain the skills I need to create something new.

In the meantime, though, I’m absolutely relishing my free time. I’m collecting experiences like fireflies in a jar, practicing spontaneity with every flashing invitation: “Who wants to watch a movie?” “Anyone down to hike?” Since arriving, I’ve watched my first Wes Anderson movie, seen the largest Latter-Day Saints temple in the world, and gone on a gorgeous 6 a.m. hike.

Out of necessity, I’ve started to cook for myself. Turns out if you boil red cabbage, you may be drinking purple soup for days on end. What I’m proudest of is that I’ve finally gotten into a gym routine, assisted in large part by my new gym buddy.

As someone who’s lived in New Jersey for all 19 years of her life, one of my primary goals this summer was to get out of the Garden State. Baked into that goal, I realize now, was a yearning to finally become myself. I have never been good at making decisions, always concerned about the optimal outcome, about the what-if of a bad one — merely a log buoyed by the river of opinion.

But here, I am forced to choose — what to make for dinner, what project to work on, who to hang out with when plans coincide. These small choices feel large, though they’re not so different from the ones I make in Princeton. I think it’s because they finally feel like my own.

Though it’s 6 p.m., the mountain outside my window still basks in the hot Utah sun, which doesn’t set until 9 p.m. The cars rumble by, shiny vans and glinting pickup trucks. One of my roommates, who was sewing beside me for most of this piece, just left to go participate in a city protest.

“What are you doing tonight?” she asked me.

“I’m not sure,” I said.

Maybe I’ll go on a sunset hike along the Bonneville Shoreline Trail; maybe I’ll grab ice cream at Cloud Ninth; maybe I’ll read some papers by the window. Regardless of what I choose, though, I’m excited to see how the future turns out.

Eliana Du is the head Cartoons editor for the ‘Prince.’