[472-478] My electronic devices professor often, at the beginning of lecture, he usually sums up the last lecture. Just to remind you and get you back on the same page. He also does a very good job of writing on the chalkboard, which I like because it goes slow and you can see his thought process and follow along. He’s also very grounded in reality and gives you great examples of how it’s used and why it’s important all the time. He is funny, and he knows my name, and those are definitely bonus points for him, so it makes having to deal with Schrodinger’s wave equation a lot more digestible.
Tag: round3
[480-495] My Advanced Programing class is taught by this guy who is probably one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. He started out as an electrical engineer, even though he’s teaching at a computer engineering class. He worked for Microsoft and was a software developer and knows all these sorts of things that I couldn’t even begin to dream about learning about. He really teaches with a, listen, if you want to learn, you got to do it, you got to practice, you got to go out of your comfort zone, and he does not spare us on the difficulty on the homework assignments, labs, and midterms. I walked out of the midterm thinking I had gotten absolutely no more than a 50. I ended up with an 80, so that’s good. This is the first time he’s teaching the class, so he really still has the passion for it, but he definitely wants to teach us more than he can. One of the things I really like about him is that he is working on research outside of class to map neural networks. I mentioned that earlier as being on the forefront of science and technology, which it is, so yeah. That’s really exciting. I think what makes him a step above my Circuits professor is that he cares about if you’re paying attention in class. If you’re not, he’ll call you out on it. His lecture is still interesting. He cares about the subject matter. He cracks jokes and tells stories and things.
[500-504] This one guy from my Signals and Systems class, he’s just annoying. He zooms through pages and pages of proofs at the speed of light and he says, “If you can’t follow this, maybe you’re better suited in Culinary Arts,” and stuff like that. So rude. He doesn’t even tell us anything other than what’s in the book. Why would I pay attention to him when I could just read it later and not be berated?
[524-528] After he makes rude statements, he just rolls through the material. Nobody talks through that class or anything. It’s not very interactive. It’s very much him telling you things and you writing it down as quickly as you can, and he’s going to keep on going. He’ll laugh at his own jokes, though. I saw a meme that one of my classmates made. They took a picture of him pointing at the board and photoshopped Culinary Arts onto it. Terrible.
[584-590] I absolutely love my TA for signals and Systems. She does such a better job than teaching than he does. She’s really pleasant. I have TA’s from pats terms that I really loved that when I walk by them on the street they’ll stop and talk to me and be like, “Hey, what’s up?” That’s so nice. Overall, you just get your normal distribution of people. There are nice ones, there are mean ones, there are people who are interesting to you and people who are boring. I feel like the staff of college pretty accurately reflects normal humanity
[505-509] As for Circuits II, Keith is a really nice guy, but he’s just too mild mannered to be a good professor. He lets silence hang in the air after he asks a question, and he has a very quiet monotonous voice. His PowerPoints are great and easy to follow, and he does a good job of breaking up the subject matter, but he’s just too awkward to be a good lecturer.
[512-515] Yeah. He’ll half ask a question, like he’ll ask a question but not in a way that you know you have to answer it. He’ll be like, “So, the gain for this amplifier is” … Just like that the entire class on repeat and it’s like you don’t know if that’s a question or if he’s just trying to build up to an answer or thinking about it. Just so annoying.
[636-638; 643-650] The classes that I’m taking are interesting and relevant. Also, I have won two awards from doing well in my extracurricular activities. I’m going out of my way to try to incorporate engineering into the rest of my life, like for the project that I’m working on. I got the IT excellence award or whatever, because I’m on the IT team for my school’s newspaper. I did a lot of work for them this past term, and they appreciated that. I also won the multicultural award for really trying to participate in and go to every event by the Intercultural Community Bridge Program at my institution, which introduces international students to the culture of the local city, institution, and the United States. That was awesome. I really appreciate that. They’re not really like awards, but they’re something and I’m happy about it.
[58-115; 302-309] At the end of spring, I failed chemistry class since I wasn’t really interested. I’ve been having a hard time getting through the Gen Eds just because I don’t have the passion for it. I did well on the rest of my classes. That was pretty low for me, but overall I went up. The summer was very nice. I adopted a pigeon. I don’t feel like it’s necessary to censor that. I went back home. I went on vacation, getting ready for my new summer job. I was a camp counselor and a camp instructor. It was fun to interact with a lot of other STEM majors and with a lot of interested young adults. It makes me feel better self-confidence and eye-opening. I went to several tours of places related to engineering. I really want to internship with one of them, so I’m going to contact them privately. I taught soldering, 3-D modeling, SolidWorks, and Rhinoceros 6. Summer was the highest point because that job was very fulfilling. I started to lower down as the summer job ended. I was ready for starting a new semester. Being at home is kind of suffocating just because there’s not much for me to do that is engaging and enriching for my brain. I got a new e-board position. I became the president of a club. That has been a good hobby to get me off of worrying about classes. Lately for the past few weeks, I’ve been on the decline just because I’m retaking Physics 2 for the third time. It is a problem that I still don’t have a plan or the energy to get through them now, so I’m struggling. Another huge problem was that I didn’t have a creative outlet anymore. All of my class are math-based and have nothing to engage me on a creative side, so I started looking to music. I try to do that when I can because it also takes me away from the math monotony. I feel more hopeful that I have been in the past few weeks, and the antidepressants started working. I felt happy to finally feel that way. Overall, it’s expected to be generally lower during the degree because I know for a fact the degree is hard. But going through this experience will be worth it in the long run. I don’t mind a little low point as long as at the end of tunnel I get a fulfilling job and a fulfilling paycheck.
[144-163] For counseling, because each week we had a different camp, we actually had several camps that people could go to. It was called Engineering Careers and was focused on various skills that an engineer should have. We took a tour of Engineering Building in my school. We saw multiple rooms that I haven’t even seen before. We saw various testing labs and huge workshop facilities. The next week, I counseled for games and puzzles. We were off campus to a forest preserve retreat by our school. The camp was all focused-on games and puzzles. A lot of creative thinking instead of strictly like math and engineering such as how to create and them. They had to create their own escape room, the one with the middle schoolers. By interacting with them, it was very nice to see just the development of their ideas. It reminded me of my youngest sister who just started high school.
[164-189] The next week I was an instructor. I instructed for the 3-D design camp. We gave them various challenges, and we tasked them with assembling each Lego into SolidWorks. They had digital helpers to measure everything. Eventually, we could 3-D print the model, so we could do a compare and contrast. The next project was like a key chain project we used Rhinoceros 6. You can do a lot in SolidWorks for assembly and for making precise components, but for Rhinoceros 6 it’s a lot easier to do artistic things. The last project, it was kind of rough. It was making a USB casing with old USB drives that are just lying around. They give out just for free. The project was to design it so you could put the USB drive and its internal components into a 3-D printed case. So we combined some aspects from Rhinoceros 6 with SolidWorks in order for us to actually make something both artistic and practical. The next week, I taught Product Design, which was basically teaching something basic things like woodworking, soldering, and 3-D modeling. I spent a day on each of those aspects and then for the rest of the week they had to design their own product. They had to think of their own unique product that they could eventually sell, theoretically. They were really creative and inspirational kids at some points, really annoying at some points too, but I didn’t mind.
[206-220; 224-237] For the rest of my classes, I have Mechanical Engineering Dynamics. My professor is very understanding and passionate about how he teaches. I really like the way he teaches. The very first day, I introduced myself to him, because I want to make that a habit. I told him about my mental health. He listened and simply stated, “I hope you feel comfortable in this class.” Not only that, but whenever somebody asks a question, he answers it thoroughly. This professor goes in depth and tries to answer everything concisely, so I’m not afraid to ask a question in class. He usually writes on the board. He has his own website where he posts certain things and programs some simulations for us to use. That’s really fun. Just being able to see some of these concepts. He has so much energy in every class that its contagious and makes me interested because he’s doing it in such an interesting way. Every time I go into the class, I feel engaged. I don’t feel like I’m just writing down stuff to write down. When I have a homework assignment from him, I can get through it and learning something really important for me. The other two classes I have are mostly math-based. I have Engineering Economics, which is interesting with a lot of math. I have Differential Equations. It’s my second favorite just because I have a good study group. I’m excited to work through those problems, just because I have a group that I can share it with. I feel like I understand Diff Eqau more than Econ at this point, even though I felt like at the beginning of this semester it was going to be the opposite.
[241-251] There’s this one person who I’ve been studying with since my freshman year. We’re more than just study partners. We’re really good friends. Spending time with them is fun. It’s also easy to study with them because I know them. Getting a study group together is hard because it’s about establishing a time and place, scheduling, and all the logistical stuff. I also have my girlfriend in the class, so I can study with the both of them and overall it’s during that time it’s fun and it feels easier to me to express my ideas.