Sarah

Hey Hawkeyes!

I’m so sorry I haven’t blogged in a month! The weeks after Thanksgiving were a whirlwind. I’ll try to go through each of the weeks and update on what’s coming this next semester.

So November 27th was my registration day and 9:20am was my time. I was at my computer at 9:15am and at 9:18 I was hitting refresh every 30 seconds. I had spent my break planning the ideal (or close to it) schedule. Some of the classes that I needed to get that schedule were starting to fill up so I knew I had to register for those classes first. I am happy to say that I am now registered for all my classes. Well, almost all. One of the classes I was really looking forward to taking was restricted to a different major. I couldn’t register for it. However, the course description said that I could contact the instructor. Moment of hope! I emailed the instructor. After a week of no response, I am left with talking to the professor on the first day of class. I’m really hoping it works out.

December 3rd was the University Band concert. A couple of my high school friends came to watch, which was awesome. It was cool to have my high school friends meet my new college friends. It was also fun to finally perform the songs we’d been working on. It was sad saying goodbye to some of my band friends though. If I get into the class I mentioned earlier I won’t be able to do band next semester. I’ll definitely miss it. It was a nice escape from science and math.

The following Friday, the prototype for Engineering Problem Solving 1 was due. In my last blog I mentioned the Zero Energy Loss Homeless Shelter project. We had to make a scale model and test it under a heat lamp and in front of a fan. We had tested it before and had some issues, but we made improvements and had high hopes. We had insulated our shelter so well that heat couldn’t get in(kinda a big issue). We flipped our ceiling to the floor, made our window bigger(and less insulated), and changed our door from a doggy door to a halfway normal door. Isn’t it pretty? 🙂

Group 11’s homeless shelter the Iowa City Emergency Shelter, ICES for short 🙂

The next week was full of chemistry homework, my last computer program (in MatLab… ew), making a poster for ICES, and math presentations. My engineering group worked for about 10 hours on the poster for the poster presentation. It turned out pretty nice.

My group, Group 11, with our poster. What do you think?

This was our last project together, so the picture of our group that we put on the poster was done ceremoniously. We put tape on the back, put it on the poster and we all put our hands on top of each others and pressed it on. It was by far the dumbest thing I have ever done, but it was actually great team-bonding. I loved this group, we had a ton of fun. I’m really going to miss them.

For math, we had a presentation about applying math to our hobbies or using math in a real world situation. My group chose how math is used in photography. It was fun to research, and it made me realize that I really like photography. I’m thinking about taking some more photography classes. It would be fun to get better at it and have a break from all the science and math of engineering.

On that Friday night, since it was the weekend before finals week and the last weekend my friends were all together, we had a pizza party and played games. While we were hanging out, we looked out the window and it was snowing!

First snow of the year!

So we, of course, had to run outside and stand in it. It was way too warm for it to stick and it melted before it hit the ground. By the time we came in it was more like rain, but it was still exciting. I’m glad it didn’t snow while we were there, a few of my friends may have had a hard time getting home.

That weekend was filled with studying and review sessions led by Teaching Assistants. I also applied to be an RA during that weekend (hoping for the best!).

My finals were 7:30am and 8:30pm Monday and 7:30am Tuesday. It was nice to be done so early, but it didn’t give me much time to study between them. All of my finals went ok. I wished they could have gone better, but I tried my best. All in all my homework grades were pretty much perfect so I knew my overall grade couldn’t be too horrible. It was sad saying goodbye to my friends, especially knowing I wouldn’t see some of them for over a month. When you get used to seeing people every day, it feels weird when you realize you won’t see them at all.

Packing to come home from break was a bit stressful too. I didn’t want to forget anything I might need since the dorm building closes for winter break. I also rearranged my room. I’ll take a picture and post it when I get back. There are some other things I might try with rearranging my room too. We’ll see how the current one works out.

Well, I think I’ll end this ridiculously long post here. I promise not to go an entire month without blogging again. Good bye for now 🙂

Wow! Has it really been two weeks since I last posted?! We’re finally on break and I’m loving it!

The two weeks before break were hectic and stressful. I was counting down the entire time. I could not have been more thrilled to finally hit break. It’s great to be home, but I do miss my friends. It will be great to see everyone again and catch up after we’ve had a week back home. I have a group that typically eats lunch together (did you know you can fit 12 people around a 6 person table?) and since I’ve been home I’ve had pretty quiet lunches.

The weekend before break was the game against Purdue. Since it was right before Veteran’s Day, there was a patriotic focus to this game along with a giant American flag. It was a very cool sight.

Thank you to all those who have served our country!

The student section was very excited about the touchdowns we managed to get.

After a busy week of engineering problem solving (building a prototype of a homeless shelter) along with the impending chemistry exam, we had another study party. We started a few days before the exam and did more practice than re-reading. We drew diagrams and worked through the practice exams. It was nice to study together for a few hours before the exam. It was also a great feeling to walk to the exam with friends, wish each other luck, and part ways.

Study party!

After the exam we celebrated with going out for frozen yogurt, even though it was cold outside. It was a fun stress-reliever after the exam. It was a great last friend thing since we all knew we’d be leaving at different times on Friday. We said our goodbyes and gave hugs that night and planned dinner for when we all get back. As nice as it will be to see everyone, I really do love being home and not thinking about school for a while. However, I will be setting up my schedule for next semester so I can register right away on the 27th. Hopefully I’m lucky and have a good schedule.

Until next time, have a great Thanksgiving!

Hey Hawkeyes!

Is anyone else surprised that Thanksgiving break is so close? My roommate and I counted the days until break starts. We were both surprised to find out that there are exactly 14 school days until break. On one hand it’s exciting that we finally get a break, but on the other hand it means that the next round of tests is right around the corner. I have an exam tomorrow night (eek!) and then another one next Tuesday, and one the Thursday after that. And actually, I’m pretty sure I have a math exam somewhere in there too.

Anyway though, for an update on my current life. My weeks have been getting busier and busier, which is strange because some of my classes are already starting to wrap up. However, the classes that I do have are still going strong. In my engineering class, the lecture part is ending but the discussion is still going. The discussion part is all project-based. The most recent project was toy dis-assembly. The main idea of this project was to reverse engineering a toy. We had to make an estimation about how a toy worked and then disassemble it and figure out how it actually worked. The toy my group chose was a Playskool Ball Popper. After removing the three screws from the bottom of the toy, we discovered there weren’t any more screws. The top button part was held in by notches around the casing. We also discovered the these notches were extremely hard to get out. The first time we took it apart we needed three people to get the notches out. We also knew we needed pictures of the disassembled item for our end presentation.

All the pieces from our toy

After taking more pictures and studying the pieces, we put it back together. Part of our project grade is making sure it works at the end. One of our group members got a little excited and put the notched piece in too soon.

They spent several minutes trying to take it apart again.

When we finally got it apart, again, we put the right pieces in and clicked everything into place only to discover the handle was turned the wrong way. So we had to take the whole thing apart again.

Taking it apart…again

Every time we took it apart we got faster at it, but we made sure this was the last time we had to take it apart. We put everything back together and it actually worked.

The completed working toy.

We then had to make a whole presentation about the dis-assembly process and describe the operation of each of the pieces. I think our presentation went really well and the peer feedback was positive. Now we just have to wait for the grade. Now we’re getting  ready to start our final project. I’ll keep you updated on that project. Until my next post (which will hopefully be soon), have a good week!

Hey Hawkeyes!

It’s been another busy week filled with homecoming activities and homework. This past week also brought the excitement of the fall engineering career fair. For all the first year students this was the first opportunity for us to get our names out there. As a requirement for Engineering Problem Solving 1, we all wrote a resume and had it reviewed by the professional development staff. All the girls on my floor were making lists of the companies they wanted to talk to. Everyone was talking about what they were going to wear. These things are so hard for girls. Dress pants? Skirt? Dress? Heels? Flats? Hair up? Down? So many decisions to make. I was entertained by the excitement, and felt a little left out. Yes, I am an engineering major and yes, I was supposed to go to the career fair. Sadly, I could not. My chemistry lab was scheduled directly on top of the career fair. We were told that this lab would be the longest lab and it was doubtful we would finish early. This lab was the titration lab.

Coming from a small school, a lot of our chemistry equipment was under par, making it near impossible to allow every student to conduct multiple titrations in a lab. I had read through the lab in the lab manual before going to class, but I was very grateful that my lab partner had done titrations many times. We worked together and moved through the lab pretty quickly.

Titrating water samples to test the hardness of the water.

This lab was great bonding time with several people in my class. We went from working with partners, to working in a group of 4, to working in a group of 8 in that time span of about three hours. As much fun as lab is, I still don’t look forward to standing for all three hours though. I suppose by the end of the semester I’ll be accustomed to it, but as for now: wear comfortable shoes to lab.

See you later this week!

Hey Hawkeyes!

Wow, it’s been a busy week. I’ll try to give a full recap to get caught up and then hopefully I can make smaller posts more frequently. I’ll start with last weekend (the UNI game).

Last weekend began with me spending the night at a friend’s apartment. It was exciting to get out of the dorms for a little bit, but I was still close enough that I could go to the game on Saturday. My friend and I went out to dinner before she drove me to Hy-vee to re-stock on food. My study snacks had been slowly depleting with the amount of homework I’ve been doing lately. One of the highlights of staying at her apartment was taking a shower with hot water in an actual bathroom. At a certain point you just get tired of the dorm showers. Especially when you have to get up at 6:30 to have a hot shower. My friend dropped me off at my dorm in time to go to lunch with some other friends before heading to the game against Northern Iowa.

Sitting in Kinnick waiting for the game to start. The earlier you get there, the better seats you can find.

They told me that I needed to be in at least one picture 🙂

It was a nice day for the game, a little warm, but not bad. I’ve been trying to work on my sports photography so I’ll share a few that I thought were decent.

Kick-off at some point. I don’t know much about football, which means I know basically nothing. I just like taking pictures 🙂

Pushing through for more yards

Celebration after a touchdown! A very happy moment for players and fans. (The blurry black part on the right side is a happy fan’s arm that flew up at the last minute.)

The rest of the weekend was spent doing homework and getting ready for the coming week.I had plenty of homework and a few big assignments. Word of advice? Start Engineering Problem Solving 1 homework earlier. The first few problems are really easy so you put it off, and then you end up staying up until 3am to finish the homework the morning that it’s due. It did get finished (I still don’t know my grade yet) but I felt pretty good about it. Other than being really tired, Tuesday went pretty well. Then I decided to start my Engineering Problem Solving 2 homework that was due Friday. We had to write a password validity program that had multiple requirements. After sitting in the T.A. Office Hours for 4 hours, I had the entire code written and was getting ready to run the program when I accidentally over-wrote the file. Essentially, I deleted my entire program with no way to retrieve it. I did feel bad for the poor T.A. who had to deal with a pretty distraught me. I managed to re-type a quarter of my program Tuesday night. After sitting in office hours all Wednesday night and Thursday night, I finally finished my code and submitted it. Now I just have to wait for my grade. Lesson learned: back-up everything and be very careful before clicking anything that might alter your work.

Wednesday was a relaxing day(other than worrying about my program). I decided to take a photography class first year seminar so I could get away from the math and science of engineering.  So far it’s been one of my best decisions yet. The professor is awesome and the atmosphere of the class is very relaxed. We took a “field trip” on Wednesday during our class time. Our “field trip” meant meeting at the Old Capitol and taking pictures of the stair case:

The stair case in the Old Capitol. Our assignment was to get a unique picture from a different angle.

We also had to take a picture of the architecture of the Old Capitol.

I tried to go for a “up the stairs to the pillars” shot. I’m not sure how I feel about how this turned out.

The highlight of the day? Our professor brought her kids (her poodles) to class and we were assigned to take at least one picture of them.

Bailey, the shy and slightly timid one, but she still loved attention.

This is Rex(T-Rex). He was very friendly and greeted everyone that walked past the Old Capitol steps.

For a class of ten girls that all miss their pets, seeing the dogs was a great way to relax. We could pick up the dogs and move them around.

Bailey posing for a picture.

I’m sure all the people walking past thought we were crazy. Quite a few people stopped and took their own pictures and cuddled the dogs too. We just don’t see animals as much as we’d like.

Friday meant almost all my homework was due. I had a couple papers, my resume, and my EPS2 homework due. I also had Engineering Problem Solving 1 discussion. This just so happened to be our lab day. On Monday we had chosen what type of cookie and what type of chocolate we wanted. We had to have consistent chocolate coating with the majority of the cookie covered. We had to measure the cookies so we can determine if we’ve been successful in coating the cookie.

Weighing the cookies and recording mass. We organized our cookies by letters to keep them straight.

My group decided to coat half our cookie with vanilla almond bark and the other half with chocolate. My group works well together, we just need to get faster at working within our time constraints. Our final product ended up being rushed and not as pretty as we’d hoped, but they still looked very tasty(we also got to sample a few of the extras 🙂 ).

Our finished product 🙂

On Monday we’ll measure the final product and record new dimensions. I think they look pretty good 🙂

Saturday was the football name against Central Michigan(which we lost 🙁 ) but it was still fun to go to the game. I went with a few friends and we were really close to the side line(bad place for pictures) so we felt really close to the action.

A small part of my group for the game

It’s really nice now that the weather has cooled off. I still got sunburned though (I even put sunblock on!). I made an attempt to work on my sports photography again.

One of the pictures I thought was pretty cool.

Getting ready to play

Sorry for the really long post. This next week will hopefully be less stressful (ha!) so I can do several small posts instead of a great big one like this. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my week of mistakes and learning moments. Thanks for sticking all the way through! 🙂

Ok, it’s not actually a party. At least not that kind of party. It was a study party.

This was the start of the night, around 6:30pm.

A friend in my Chemistry lecture decided that we should study together. We slowly added people and papers until……..

By about midnight(yes, 6 hours of studying) the papers and people had exploded

It was a late night (went to bed at 2am) and I thought I studied really well. The study party was a lot of fun though, and it even included a last minute run to Orange Leaf for some frozen yogurt. The break definitely helped us to focus more and gave a nice 20 minute distraction, then it was back to the books (and computers and notes). Unfortunately, I didn’t do very well on my first Chemistry exam, at least not as well as I would have liked. I’ll have to come up with a new study plan. The group study party was a lot of fun and I think it’s a good form of review for exams, just maybe not a great initial study plan.

I think that’s one of the hardest things about college, figuring out what works for you. Everyone wants to do well, and it’s always disappointing when you don’t do as well as you wanted. You also need to remember to get enough sleep along with studying. It seems like we’re really full-swing into the semester. I’m basically buried in homework with a small, hopeful light at the end of the tunnel (hoping for a break from homework next weekend). It seems like you’re always trying to juggle starting the homework you were just assigned and completing the homework that’s due the next day. Everyone tells you to start the homework early but somehow, early never works out and you end up doing it last minute.

I think part of the key is learning what each professor expects and what kind of homework each professor gives. Most professors I have are fairly consistent. The homework looks about the same every week, so you can start to develop a feel of how long it will take to get done. If only the weekend were one day longer, I could be so much more productive and even operate on decent sleep!

Good luck to everyone with exams this week!

Hey Hawkeyes!

Wow, talk about a busy week and weekend. Has it already been almost a week since my last post?! I’ll give you a short rundown on last week.

Tuesday night, with no pressing homework, was the fun night of going out for frozen yogurt with some friends. Just so you know, Orange Leaf’s chocolate and carmel yogurt with butterfingers is really good.

Wednesday started the University Band, which is the non-audition band here at Iowa. Anyone can do it, and you even get a credit for it. We played through the music we will be playing for our concert which is December 3rd, for those who want to check it out. We’re playing some pretty cool pieces.

Thursday night, a few friends and I went out for ice cream with some new friends that were sophomores in engineering. We met at an engineering gathering in the Seamans Center (engineering building) and they were really helpful in giving advice about classes and professors.

Friday brought the scramble to submit the Chemistry homework by 11:59pm. A group of girls on my floor gathered in a room to help each other and we finished the homework with plenty of time to spare.  As a celebration of finishing the Chemistry homework, we went to the movie playing at the Iowa Memorial Union.

Saturday meant sleeping in (finally!) and of course, the big football game against Iowa State. This was my first college football game so I was a little nervous and a little excited. I walked to Kinnick Stadium with a friend, but somehow got separated once we were there. There were so many people! I ended up standing next to some people I didn’t know, but they were very friendly and helped fill me in on how things usually worked at the games. A few pictures from my first Hawkeye football game:

Even though we didn’t win, it was still a ton of fun. Campus was really quiet afterwards, so it was a little depressing. I’m excited for this week’s game against Northern Iowa. Go Hawks!

Hey Hawkeyes!

I hope everyone has been having a great week, especially with the great 3-day weekend. It was great to go home and see friends from high school. We all swapped college stories and talked about how college life was going. As great as it was to be home, I was actually pretty happy to come back to campus and see friends.

With the homework due this week and my first Chemistry exam next week (Yikes!!!!) we’ve been spending quite a bit of time studying. I love living on the Women in Science and Engineering floor because we’re all freaking out about a lot of the same homework. It’s also nice being able to go with a friend to a tutoring session so you don’t have to walk in by yourself. It’s awesome having people who can help understand concepts when you’ve read the same page 10 times and still don’t understand it.

So until next time, have fun studying!

Happy study time 🙂

Hey Hawkeyes!

I hope everyone is doing well with their classes so far. I’m still trying to find the right rooms and figure out the room organization. The streets are a lot busier and the dining halls are certainly more full. You can definitely tell who the freshman are by who is 30 minutes early for a class (yes, I’m one of them). I think everyone is just so worried about being late that they think they have to be there extra early.

Getting to class early definitely helps getting to know people though. It gives you time to look around and see if you recognize anyone and introduce yourself to someone new. I’ve even met a few people that were on my floor but I hadn’t met yet.

Things I’ve Learned So Far:

• Order/ Buy books before class starts. I know a lot of people want to wait to make sure that they need the books, but in a one of my classes the bookstore sold out of the book. Now people are scrambling to find a book that, of course, is a custom edition that can’t be bought online. In another one of my classes, the publishing company is switching editions, therefor it has stopped shipping the 6th edition but the bookstore is waiting to receive the 7th edition.
• Look at your schedule, write down the room number and building somewhere you can easily access it while walking. It really will make your life easier. After a great laugh with my roommate and her friend (her friend wrote down the office number instead of class room), we realized you really need to write down the room number and be able to pull it out of a pocket instead of digging through your bag for your schedule when you finally find the right building(like I did).
• Schedule time to eat. As I learned today, waiting to eat/drink anything until 5:00pm because of class location, makes you dehydrated (major headache) and very hungry. I had two classes around lunch time in the same building, so I figured I’d just wait to eat. Not realizing I had another class right after that, I rushed off to the next class with no food. Definitely make time for breakfast too. They have great coffee in the dining hall and fresh fruit that makes the morning so much better.
• Do NOT plan your classes 10 minutes apart. Unless the buildings are really close and you know exactly where the rooms are to know the fastest way out and in. Today I had two classes that were ten minutes apart and quite a ways apart. By the time I arrived at my next lecture, I had 3 minutes to spare and had to sit at the way back where I couldn’t see the projection screen half the time because of all the heads. Tomorrow, I get to run from the College of Nursing Center (West Side) to the Adler Journalism and Mass Communications Building (East Side) in 10 minutes. Luckily, I was able to switch my group for Engineering Problem Solving because then I would have added a Seamans Center (East Side) to the time right before the Nursing Building.
• Don’t freak out too soon. A lot of classes can sound really scary the first day and make you want to rethink your major. But from what I’ve gone through so far, the second day is usually better. Instead of the quick explanation of EVERYTHING the class will cover (it sounds really overwhelming, trust me), the professor will usually start to explain the details that you actually need to know right away on the second day of class. It just makes it really hard when there’s homework the first day and you feel like you have no idea what’s going on.
• Be organized. Everyone likes to think they’re organized, then they come to college. I’m still working on my paper management, book organization, and how to keep track of things. Right now, I have two assignment notebooks. One for scheduling, like when I have class, meetings I have to go to, hanging out with friends, and events going on. The other one is for actual assignments: homework and reading. These assignment notebooks are also color-coded so I can look at a color and know what class the assignment is for(that’s the idea anyway). It’s been working out pretty well so far. I just need to see how the teachers assign the reading to know how to write the due date. Some professors go by weeks for due dates and some go by a specific day.
• Talk to the professor. If you don’t want to ask in front of a huge lecture hall of people, talk to them after class or go to office hours. Main question to ask: do I have to bring the book? Do you really want to haul all three chemistry books around with you all day until you have that class? Some classes don’t use the books in class, some use it depending on whether it’s a lecture, discussion, or lab time. For example, my chemistry book(the great big one) doesn’t have to go to any class. So the only time I have to drag my book along is if I go somewhere to study, in which case that book will be the only one I take. However, my Engineering Problem Solving II book, which covers programming has tips and bits of computer code to help you start different assignments. Which means, that book will be going with me to every class(luckily it’s smaller than the Chemistry book). Asking the professor if you’ll use the book in class will make your bag feel a lot lighter and help you be prepared for class.

I think that’s all for now. I know I’ll have more later. This week is a major learning week, both in and out of the classroom. The nice thing is: there’s about 4,500 freshman going through the same thing I am 🙂