My Seymour Experience - Catherine Hudson

Having joined the Post Oak community in January, there was a limited choice of A-terms. I love traveling so I decided to choose the Paleontology A-term because even though it wasn’t Costa Rica or China, Seymour was still a place I had never been. I’ll admit that prior to this trip I did not ever express a particular interest in the field and had several apprehensions about spending hours brushing dirt around in search of bones that were not even that of dinosaurs. Although I cannot say this trip to Seymour has given me the desire to become a paleontologist, I can say I have a newfound appreciation and respect for them. Their enthusiasm and passion for their work is truly fascinating and it was amazing to see them pick out rock-like pieces and be able to identify them as specifically as the left elbow bone of an amphibian. I personally didn’t mind working all day out in the field, as the long hours went by faster due to the favorable weather and discussions with classmates. As I learned on this trip, there are multiple jobs that contribute to the work on the dig site. For example, hiking and prospecting for new areas, drawing the fossils, taking field notes, searching the spoil pile,  “mushrooming” jackets, etc. With all these options, it is hard to get bored as whenever you got restless doing one task, you could just move on to the next. My preferred tasks were those with an end in sight: digging around a jacket and searching the spoil pile, and taking the jacket out of the ground and finding bones and teeth, respectively. Outside of simply digging, I enjoyed the drives and hikes through the beautiful Texas countryside and the downtime with classmates. I’m really glad I chose this A-term, despite initial hesitation, as I thoroughly enjoyed this trip and made some great memories.