Upon receiving a call from the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre learning of my acceptance into an undergraduate research program at the University of California Berkeley's Space Sciences Lab, called ASSURE, I felt ecstatic, to say the least. Not only have I never been abroad to perform academic research, but I had never been exposed to a professional scientific working environment like this one. The weeks passed in the blink of an eye and soon I found myself picking films to watch in my excruciatingly cramped plane seat. A couple of naps and meals later, I was alone on the other side of the globe, in the midst of the overwhelming crowds of San Francisco International Airport.