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Anna’s Quotes #8

[35-44] While I was abroad visiting family, a very I would say life altering incident occurred that really put me into a bad mental state. And I didn’t start dealing with it until I got back from my trip because when I was there, I wasn’t about to let it ruin the only time I saw my family in eight years. So, I deeply suppressed that, moved on. But then when I got back, I was really not feeling it. I wasn’t doing my homework or going to class. I started smoking cigarettes, and it was not good. Very, very not good. I basically stopped caring about school, and I let this one extracurricular project that I was doing, it’s a LiDAR project, I let that fall to the wayside, and we are no longer doing that project.

[225-232] Oh boy. Up until the point where we stopped, we had basically conceptualized the idea. And we knew what we wanted it to do and how we wanted it to do it. And we had bought parts, like a Raspberry Pi and wire strippers. And we found the resources that we would need to assemble our design. So, we checked out the machining lab on campus. But then, it all kind of fell apart from there. We got about half the things we needed and then we couldn’t really decide on a power source. And all of us were busy with classes and there was nobody really being like, “Come on guys, we can do it.” So, we didn’t do it.

[45-47] I think that is entirely my fault because I was the sort of rally for that group and the leader of it. And when I stopped making people do things, things stopped getting done.

[48-54] Also, I withdrew from a class because I couldn’t handle five classes at the same time. And I couldn’t handle waking up early and my sleep schedule was absolutely terrible. I was also in some trouble with two of my friends because we had a bit of an argument. So, I was unsure of the friendships, so I was really not good. The only highlights through that period of suffering were a couple of parties I went to where I saw my friends. And Valentine’s Day. I made Valentines for everybody. That was nice.

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Anna’s Quotes #9

[92-112] For dynamic systems and stability was taught by a teacher that I had before. And in the class that I had him, he was callous and cruel. But in this class, he really opened up and was friendly. And he would look at me to see if I laughed at his jokes. And it was the first class that I have taken that really has to do specifically with control systems engineering, which is what I want to do. And I picked up on the information really easily because I liked it. And as part of that class, the big project that we did for it was essentially proving that mutual inductance exists. And that’s when you get two coils of wire that both have electricity through them. Because they have electricity, they have an associated magnetic field. And when you put them close together, the magnetic field interferes. And the purpose of the lab was to show did it interfere? By how much? And he gave us very little instruction. He was just like, “All right, prove this exist.” So, me and my good friend Francis who were in the class together, we’re pursuing very similar career paths. We crushed it. We went to the lab three or four times. I formatted our report beautifully. And we got a really solid method going. And we had a couple moments of, “Man, the math really isn’t working out here. Man, we busted our inductors. They’re dead.” But basically, at the last minute, after having started adequately early facing a couple really dumb setbacks. We pulled it all together, turned it in, and got 100. It was awesome.

[117-133] The last class that I had him for was a class called Signals and Systems 1. And it’s required class for all electrical engineers and some other engineers to take. And since it’s a required class, I viewed it as almost sort of a weed-out course, and he made it much more difficult than it had to be. With an obscene amount of homework, very difficult tests that didn’t really reflect the homework. And in class, he pretty much recited the notes that he posted for us. So, it wasn’t super helpful.            But in this class, because it’s something that he actually did for a living and it’s more specialized. So, if you’re there, it means you want to be there. He really opened up. He told us stories about how the stuff we were learning had actually applied in his professional career. And it was very well structured. We had one quiz every two weeks, and the quizzes were directly based on the homeworks. His lectures in addition to getting those stories, also had stuff that he didn’t post online. So, you kind of had to go. And I don’t know, he was just much nicer. He made the same stupid jokes that he had made in the class before, but they were less like, “I hate you. Get out of engineering.” And more like, “You can always drop out.”

[135-143] He hasn’t stopped making that joke about culinary arts. In fact, in this past class, he made the culinary arts joke. And he also brought up a new one, which is working for the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. And it just got into the rotation with the culinary arts one he’s like, “The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile is still hiring.” And terrible, right? Awful. But about halfway through the quarter on Reddit, I found a picture of the inside of an Oscar Wiener Mayer Mobile. And I showed it to him. I said, “Professor, before we start class, there’s something I need to show you.” And he absolutely cracked up and he said, “This is priceless.” It was a really good moment

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Anna’s Quotes #10

[150-166] So the course that I withdrew from was discrete mathematics. And that’s widely renowned as an easy course. The math is logical. It follows a real-life story that’s not difficult to wrap your head around. However, I had it at 9:00 AM Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That’s the first mistake. The second thing was that although the professor was a good lecture, his assessments did not reflect the lecture material. In lecture, he would give example problems. He’d write out the theory. But then the questions he gave us on tests and quizzes were very tricky, challenging examples. Instead of the straightforward ones he had put on board. And I knew five people in that class. On the first quiz, none of us got above a 17%. And of the five people, all of them withdrew from the class. I withdrew because of a couple of things. I was getting really frustrated with the amount of work that I had to do. I felt like there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be succeeding in a math class. I’m very good at math. And I felt maybe pushing it to a later time with a different teacher would help me succeed. Especially since it wasn’t a prerequisite for anything, so it wasn’t messing with my long-term plan of study.

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Anna’s Quotes #11

[169-174] I also took a systems programming class, which followed the C programming class that I took the term before. It’s computer engineering, and I’ve always wanted to know, actually conceptually understand how computers work. And this class got me one step closer. It talked more about how the code actually interacted with the kernel of the computer, the basic operating system. And it was challenging, but it went all right. Not too bad. I feel like I learned a lot.

[197-205] So the challenging part about that class was that it was heavily theoretical and conceptual, and involved less programming than I thought it would. It was very much coding theory and how to avoid bad coding practices, and how the actual memory of a computer functions and stuff like that. And I was really not expecting to learn that through lectures. I was expecting to do some coding to figure out how to be better at coding. And it took me a couple of weeks to realize that I have to read the lecture notes. So, when I realized that basically he was going to assess us largely on knowing the theory instead of doing the practice, I started learning the theory.

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Anna’s Quotes #12

[330-337] I got to see another side of my systems programming teacher, because I was a TA junior, basically. An in-class assistant for Python programming labs this past term. And he was the course coordinator. So, he would run a couple meetings updating everybody on what’s going on in the class. And he’s really just a normal human being and hilarious, and awkward, and very different from his in-class professional persona. And I love seeing the personal sides of the professors. Beyond that, I don’t know. Just all of the teachers that I’ve had this past term have been really nice and they want to share their knowledge with you.

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Anna’s Quotes #13

[175-182] I also took programing class, dynamic systems and stability, and Signals and Systems 2. I quite liked that class. The professor taught exclusively through writing things on the board, but he would always prove it. And you could tell in the way that he talked about the math that he really thought it was beautiful. And when a professor is enthusiastic about their subject, it just makes it so much easier to be enthusiastic about.

[183-193] And him not requiring you to turn in the homework was a definite bonus. And I was taking another class. What class was I taking? Let me check, because I do not remember. Okay. I was taking probability for engineers. That was one of the classes that suffered the most from me not wanting to do work because it had a constant weekly cycle of big homework sets due. And he graded it very rigorously and required attendance. All things that would help me learn the material if I didn’t have a backup of my friends who had taken the course last term and who helped me with the homework and things. So instead of paying attention in class, I just banked on Francis knowing how to solve probability density functions and things. I basically did the minimum amount of work in that class that I could, and my grade reflects that. It was tough

[210-218] So, I love math. Because if you have the basis to understand it, it turns into almost like a story. It builds off of itself and becomes really, really useful. And my teacher did a great job of leading us from one subject into the next, and proving it to us. The intermediate steps where he was like, “Well you know the Fourier transform that you’ve been doing this whole time, it’s actually much easier if you do a Laplace transform.” And here’s how we get from there to here. And the transitions from subjects and the way he really cared how they interacted, that was super helpful. Because other teachers will just jump from topic to topic and not explain how they’re related or show you the story.

 [55-58] But things started getting a little bit better, started being able to handle it. And part of that was I made a new friend whose name is Oliver, and we got along really well and were able to talk about our problems. And that definitely helped.

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Anna’s Quotes #14

[236-243] I met Oliver because we both spent an obscene amount of time at the library. So, I would always see him around and he would always see me around. And then one day we figured out that Francis who’s my friend, was also Oliver friend. Beautiful. So, we hung out in the library a couple times and then I was like, “Hey, I’m going to actually the Free Library. You want to come?” So, we went on a decently long walk over there. We checked it out. I got really excited about all the books. And we just had really good conversation and then we were friends.

[78-88] The incident kind of really messed with me. The things that did help were talking to my best friend who has gone through similar experiences, and reaching out to people who I know care about me. But the pivotal moment that turned me from just really super messed up to starting to be okay again was Oliver encouraged me to tell my parents what happened. And I feel like sharing that with them made me feel less like it was my burden and more like it was okay to talk about. And, I don’t know. I think the only reason I didn’t completely fail my classes is because I have friends in them and they would always be like, ” Anna, did you do the homework?” And I’d be like, “Oh, I guess I got to do the homework.” That sort of thing. Yeah. I don’t really know what else to say about that. Still working on it.

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Anna’s Quotes #15

[58-62; 63-77] So, I started getting back on track. Me and my peer Francis did an excellent job on a mutual inductance project for my favorite class that I was taking. And yeah, that was pretty cool. I got my belly button pierced and then I threw another party at the end of term. And then the coronavirus hit. And I moved back home, since the coronavirus hit. we were informed that all of our finals were going to be online. And I was like, “Oh, no.” It felt like I was ripped without warning from all the things that I liked and cared about. And it felt like I was in a nightmare where I was back in high school again. But, only the bad part was after school, couldn’t go out and see anybody. And it took me a hot minute to readjust to being at home and to remembering that I actually like my family.

[258-269] So for the first couple of weeks of COVID being a thing, I was like, “This isn’t a thing. Honestly, how bad could it really be? I didn’t know that much information about it.” And my parents were freaking out extra. So of course I took the opposite stance. And they convinced me to come home for finals week. And I didn’t want to, but I did for their peace of mind. And it kind of turned out to be the right thing I suppose. But I had to abruptly in one weekend move all of my stuff out of my apartment. I was planning on having about a week to do so, and drove all the way over to my internship. Living in this house, which is the same house that I lived in in high school. Having to come down when the bell rings for dinner and ask my parents to keep the wifi on it at night. And not being able to just call my friends and say, “Are you busy right now? Let’s go for a walk.” It was really a flip.

[270-274] Prior to COVID, I had planned on never living at home again. That’s part of the reason why I chose my institution because you’re busy throughout the whole year. And it was like wait, I’m backpedaling so far. I’ve come so far, and now I have to live at home again. And that was challenging to deal with, especially since each of my family members have their own brand of annoying.

[275-287] But once I sort of relaxed into it, my sleep schedule flipped back around to being more normal. And I got done with finals. I adjusted from having something to do at every hour of the day and having to do homework and seeing my friends, and sleeping very little, to having free time. So, I started filling it up with stuff that I actually really do like to do when I have time for it. I’ve been baking a lot of bread. I’ve been reading a lot of books. I made this. It’s a wire tree attached to a piece of driftwood. So, it’s been pretty good for my creative brain, I suppose. I taught my sister how to crochet. I started working out again, cooked with my father. And once I remembered that wait, there is stuff I can do, I’ve been okay with it since then. And it’s helped that my friends have actually been very good at keeping in touch. We’ll often play board games virtually or FaceTime, or just send each other bad Snapchats of each other’s faces. It’s good.

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