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Where's the fire, what's the hurry about?
You'd better cool it off before you burn it out.
You've got so much to do and,
Only so many hours in a day.
In high school I was the proto-typical Overachiever. I joined a million clubs. I held positions of leadership in many, and heck, I even created a club of my own when I became interested in something that no club at the school offered. I was in the marching band, taking only Monday and most Sundays off from that. I held down a part-time job. And my grades were great, almost all A's.
I knew that going into college, I wouldn't be able to be such an overachiever. Afterall, in college, everything is harder. And I think that's a fair statement.
And yet...
Here is a typical week of my life in college, right from my personal planner:
I'm a busy beaver!
I've got a bunch of clubs, everything from Swing Dance to Theme Park Engineering to Campus Crusade for Christ. I'm taking twenty credit hours this quarter, including classes as part of FEH, Fundamentals of Engineering for Honors. I'm in a Short-Term Study Abroad program to go to London, England. I hang out with cool people most nights of the week.
And for the most part, I love it!
But I have also come to realize that sometimes you just need to not be busy. I've started really backing away from taking on new commitments. I've decided to put off looking into Undergraduate Research until sophomore year. I'm learning to live more frugally instead of looking for a part-time job (I've been very blessed with scholarships to help pay for tuition and the like). I say "no" sometimes when friends ask to do random things, and actually go do my homework.
That's the lesson I want everyone to learn.
Sometimes, you just have to say that enough is enough. And I have to realize that I cannot, in fact, do EVERYTHING.
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My loophole is that I can still do a heck of a lot though. :-)
Take care,
Rob
Someone please save us,
Us college kids...
I love Lab.
Ellee is my puppy back home, and I do miss her quite a bit. Unfortunately, this blog entry has very little to do with my awesome dog.
This one is about the other kind of Lab. More specifically, Lab Reports.
I effing hate/loathe/despise Lab Reports.
I know they're good for me.
I know they're important for developing real-world technical writing and organizational skills. Heck, I want to be a professor at a University, so "Publish or Perish" will be a big part of my life anyway. So it's love/hate.
I remember last year when I was in high school one of my college friends warned me about "10-hour lab reports due each week." Maybe I was being naive, but I really believed she was exaggerating. It turns out she was dead-on, and it's more than a little stressful.
It's frustrating right now, spending so many hours on a Lab Report, only to get it back a week later with a nice pretty C stamped on the front of it. Gah!
The only silver lining in all this is the fact that we get them back, with comments, graded. So in theory we should be improving as the Quarter progresses. This would be nice, since C Lab Reports are not so desirable. Especially if I'm going to pull off my 3.7 GPA brilliant master plan.
I'd explain in more detail why it is that Lab Reports are so frustrating, but the lame grades for massive amounts of work really represent the crux of the problem.
I'll let you know if it gets better.
Take care,
Rob
Part of where I'm going,
Is knowing where I'm coming from
My last entry says I like engineering.
My last entry says I like people.
What I left out was that during my Junior year of high school, for a time, I considered becoming a History major and being a teacher of History for the rest of my life.
That's not something you hear from a lot of aspiring engineers! But what can I say, History is fascinating. I think it has to do with my interest in people. Because when you think about it, History is all about extraordinary circumstances and how people caused/reacted to these circumstances. The things that get recorded in history books are often the things that were completely out of the ordinary. And that means that real, live people had to deal with these circumstances.
Some people became heroes, others villains. There are characters and events and roles and it's all this fascinating study of people and what people will do, given this or that. There are even people who just randomly decide to MAKE history by starting something extraordinary.
So with this utter captivation with History, what's an Engineering Major to do?
Fear not! The Ohio State University offers a ridiculous variety of Minors! And just yesterday, I sat down with an adviser from the Department of History and filed my paperwork to declare a History minor.
I'll be specializing in military history. Some cool classes I look forward to taking over the next four years:
History 398 - Intro to Historical Thought
History 380 - The History of War
History 381 - Wars of Empire
History 580 - History of European Warfare
and I might audit some more, like History 582 - American Military Policy.
This Minor adjustment is going to be awesome.
Take care,
Rob
I, I always believed in futures...
I have a plan.
Granted, it will most likely change a couple times over the course of my life. But it feels good to have a direction to move towards.
Anyone who knows me knows that I have always been, am, and will always be an engineer. It's just what I love. I like knowing how things work, and how to make new things that work even better. This engineering idea has followed me since the fifth grade for goodness' sake!
Yet somehow, the idea of being locked away in a lab or in a cubicle somewhere working on one tiny part for the rest of my life wasn't too appealing. I like research, I like engineering, but endless cubicle work just isn't that exciting.
I like people. I like interacting with people, talking to people, learning about people, learning from people. I like helping people.
So, I like engineering. I like helping people. *Bing!* Idea!
I will be a Professor of Mechanical Engineering.
I get to do research AND be in a people-oriented position.
What this basically means is that I'll be in college for a good, long time. I'll be pursuing a PhD someday (which I would have done anyway purely out of the interest in research), which is a good amount of years beyond my undergrad education here at The Ohio State University.
Methinks this is the best idea I've ever had as far as career-planning goes. And I've had a number of really cool profs here at OSU (again, I actually like ALL my profs and TAs this quarter; we'll see if I'm so lucky next quarter!) that have made me more sure of this career choice.
It's nice to have a plan.
Take care,
Rob
Guess who just got back today?
Them wild-eyed boys that had been away.
Haven't changed, haven't much to say,
But man, I still think them cats are crazy
This has been a great weekend!
First, a couple old friends dropped by. Rakesh is a guy I've known since about the fifth grade, and we've been best buddies ever since. Cindy I've known since about the seventh grade, and that girl made high school basically awesome. So when I heard that Cindy (of Oberlin College) and Rakesh (of Case Western) were going to be blowing through Columbus on Friday on their way home to Beavercreek, I insisted that they drop by.
Drop by they did, and there was a wonderful Beavercreek reunion. We grabbed a bite to eat at Marketplace, which is one of the many delicious eateries sponsered by OSU Dining Services. I highly recommend it.
I can't say enough how great it really was to see those two. At OSU it's so easy to get caught up in only campus life. I've got a million extra-curriculars and homework assignments and meetings and tests and everything else that goes on in college. So it was nice to take an hour to remember good old times, and see what's new with everyone. I love those kids.
Secondly, this weekend is FAMILY WEEKEND!
*applause*
This basically means that random activities (moonlight tours of campus, stadium tours, open houses for the various departments, etc.) go on for the sake of (mostly freshmen) families who flood campus for the weekend.
Since I only live an hour away, I've seen my family a couple times since getting here. But it's still cool that they came.
Moving out from home has had the odd net effect of making me closer to the family I think. I've heard of this phenomenon happening, but it's different to experience it.
It's also weird how I call my dorm "home" now, and call my old home "Beavercreek," not "home." I guess this means I really AM a college kid. Woohoo!
Take care,
Rob
We all struggle with forward motion.
'Cause forward motion is harder than it sounds.
Well every time i gain some ground,
I gotta turn myself around again.
Fun fact: Getting a passing grade in college is relatively easy.
Less fun fact: Getting good grades in college is relatively difficult.
As a young ambitious Honors student at The Ohio State University, I would be extremely pleased to receive straight A's during my first quarter. I mean, I know college is a lot harder than high school, but I've got some pretty ambitious goals I want to meet while I'm here, and starting off with straight A's gets me on that track.
Chemistry 121 is a nice, safe introduction to Chemistry. And it's actually not too different than what I learned in high school. It just moves at the speed of light, and now labs and lab reports take significantly more effort. It's been pretty good though here, I've got like a 98 for the class. My prof and TA are both really nice, and seem to really enjoy teaching. Yey Chem!
Engineering H191 is fun! We play in traffic (traffic data taken for a Civil Engineering exercise; don't worry, we were actually out of the way of the cars)! Right now the focus is on design and mechanical drawing, which is actually pretty fun. And again, the TA's and the instructor are pretty cool people who seem to enjoy teaching the class. It's also nice that I have a solid A in that class too.
Engineering Survey 100.12 is pretty cool. I'm well on my way to completing all the assignments due for it, and I look forward to learning more about different scheduling options and engineering options at OSU. So overall, this rates a colis kudos from me.
London Honors is pretty much amazing beyond all reason. Great discussion, lots of thought-provoking ideas about society (focused on Great Britain, sure, but easily extrapolated to other cultures as well) discussed. My group is focusing on the scientists of Great Britain. Darwin is our main topic, but for my personal project I'm doing Frank Whittle. He basically invented the jet engine (concurrently with a German scientist whose name I don't recall at this time). This is awesome because over the summer I worked with jet engines at Air Force Research Laboratories.
There's University Band, which I had to sadly drop. And also a cool seminar on innovation and entrepreneurship. Alas!
And then there's Calculus.
Epic Fail.
I know I'm pretty good at math. But maybe it's the accelerated pace in a ten-week quarter that's kicking my can. Maybe it's because it's a higher level of the accelerated calculus track, above the general level and below the Honors level. Maybe it's because I have a spotty track record in high school with Calculus. But long story short, let's just say that if I want straight A's, calculus is going to need a lot of attention from me.
:-(
There is a silver lining! As my associate ChiTownNut pointed out, the Math and Statistics Learning Center is a godsend! Free tutoring! All day! It's awesome!
Moral of the story? College A's are kind of hard to earn. But there is help, there is hope, and now I should go study some more.
Take care,
Rob
PS- I should also make it clear that my Calculus prof and TA are both quite awesome, and have been very helpful despite my struggling.
Ride with me, ride with me,
Ride with me, Oh.
Ride with me, ride with me
Ride with me, Yeah!
Campus Area Bus Service. aka CABS. Check them out.
You see, it rained on Wednesday. And when I say rained, I speak not of simple rain droplets of rejuvenating goodness. Not Singin' in the Rain rain. No my friend, this was miserable, misting, overbearing, overcast, yucky rain. Not the stuff you want to be caught in. Certainly not the stuff you want when you've got to go all over campus all day long.
Enter CABS.
*cue hallelujah music*
The Campus Area Bus Service is a busing service dedicated solely to the University area. Hence the name.
It's extremely convenient. Granted, they don't always run quite on time. And you have to conform to their routes. But they're clean, they're there, they're fairly quick, and fairly frequent. It doesn't always beat walking, but it sure makes those early morning cross-campus trips to Chemistry a lot easier!
...The only downside is that this makes avoiding exercise (bike, walking) a lot easier...
Take care,
Rob
We are the pirates we don't do anything,
We just stay at home, and lie around.
And if you ask us, to do anything,
We'll just tell you, we don't do anything.
Check out my last entry for an idea of how busy I am. The interesting thing is that the last entry is only a small slice of life. The majority of my day, at class and with friends, that's an entry that will have to wait for another day.
But I also believe that people need to take a break sometimes, and today was just what I needed.
I slept in. I watched football with my suitemates (Lincoln House/Tower, my home, is arranged in 10-person suites with a common living room and common multi-person bathroom). I sent some e-mails. I got on facebook. And I did not look at a single academic assignment, club meeting, or anything of the sort. And it was gloriously relaxing.
Tomorrow I'll jump into the fray again. Actually, I'm ending my nice relaxing day with going to the Columbus Crew v. LA Galaxy soccer game with a couple friends! (Side note: ExploreColumbus, where OSU students get Columbus event tickets for dirt cheap or free is AWESOME; more on that in another entry.) So I guess I'm not just being a lump today.
But the breather sure was nice. :-)
Take care,
Rob
We were both 18 [19] and it felt so right,
Sleeping all day, staying up all night.
Staying up all night
I feel so very refreshed this fine Saturday morning! (It's actually a little past noon, but give me a break, I only woke up a short time ago!) Also, the timestamp on this thing will say afternoon, but that's because the blog seems to think I run on GMT, which would be London's timezone.
Anyway, as I saying, I feel refreshed, because last night was the first night since Sunday night that I got more than 6 hours of sleep. Let's review my late-night antics, shall we?
-Homework-
22 Credit hours. Two dropped classes. 20 Credit Hours. Lots of homework.
Textbook reading is weird to get used to, but it certainly is helpful. Chemistry, Calculus, London Honors, Engineering, Survey, and so on and so forth. It makes for some late nights, especially when I procrastinate on Chem Lab reports!
-Swing Dance Club-
100% Pure Awesome. Dancing is a great way to meet people, or a great way to have fun with friends if you bring 'em. I actually did both, meeting new people at the beginner's lesson portion of the meeting, and then returning later during open dance with another friend. There's every possible level of experience, from real swingers down to two left feet kids, and the instructors are very good about helping everyone progress at their own skill levels.
-Random food trips-
High Street! Burritos Noches! Mirror Lake Cafe! So... Many... Late-night Dining Option... High Street is the main street o' life and activity here at OSU, bordering the east end of campus. This makes for a long walk or short bus ride to get there (I live in Lincoln in the West), but once you're there you're with everything! A million businesses, all right there.
Campus dining also has some nice option open until 2 AM, such as Burritos Noches and Mirror Lake Cafe.
-Visitation-
The freedom of college means no bed time. So if I want to go visit Kara on the 17th Floor, or help Bri set up her e-mail account over on South Campus, or have Laura drop by the suite, it actually happens! Movie-watching, music-listening, random joking, fun-talking good times!
-Walks-
I love strolling around campus after dark with a friend or two, talking about life. We cruise by mirror lake, have a seat, and watch the [hardcore] ducks. We walk around Central campus discover buildings we didn't even know existed. We go to the Oval, and walk down the center (NOT the Long Walk. That implies holding of hands and getting married and a ton of other mythology. I just take friendly walks). We sit in the grass and talk about life. It's a great way to end the day.
All in all, pretty awesome stuff that TOTALLY beats getting sleep. :-)
Take care,
Rob
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