Sarah

Hey Hawkeyes!

Time has been flying for the past two weeks. My last post left off on Wednesday and everything has been a whirlwind since then. I’ll try to give a summary!

Thursday
I helped with Move-in crew, which was a lot of fun again. The same group that helped Wednesday helped on Thursday so it was nice getting to know more people. I also helped with Target Takeover this year. There are shuttles that hauled all the students out to the Target in Coralville. There’s a ton of activities with chances to win free stuff. They also had a live DJ to help get the energy up. It was a lot of fun and there was so much energy.

The front crew at Target Takeover with Bullseye

Friday
We had our final On Iowa! squad meeting before we met our small groups. I was kinda nervous about meeting them but after our squad meeting and laughing with them, I realized that my small group was probably nervous about meeting me and each other. My small group was pretty cool and even participated in the ice breakers with some enthusiasm. After a lecture about how to succeed in college and then dinner, we headed to Kinnick Stadium. At Kinnick, the first years learn cheers, songs, and chants. They also get to form the big block ‘I’ on the field.

Some of my small group having fun at Kinnick

A sea of first years on Kinnick field

When we got to Kinnick, it was mass chaos as far as finding anyone. Half of my small group got lost in the sea of students walking up to Kinnick. I was a little disappointed but was trying to ignore it, but then I got to the gates where students were entering and I saw my group standing there waiting for me. When we got onto the field, I managed to find a group of Teal squad leaders and we had to take a picture. These are some of the best people I’ve ever met.

Feel the Teal!

After the Kinnick activities, students could leave to go to some other events or they could stay on Kinnick and take part in races, tug-of-war, or field goal kicking. Teal squad also had a hang out session in the middle of Kinnick field.

Teal Hangout: “I thirsted his quenches!” “Teal the feel!”

Hanging out after such a long day made for some pretty interesting moments and quotes, but that’s why I love them!

Saturday
This was the big day for On Iowa! leaders. And students I guess. As leaders, today was the day we presented the Iowa Challenge. The challenge is Excel, Stretch, Engage, Choose, Serve. These five things are what past graduates feel are necessary to have a fulfilling and successful college experience. This year, we focused on the Choose part of the Challenge. We talked about Hawks helping Hawks and keeping fellow Hawkeyes safe using bystander intervention if we see something that could put someone in danger. My small group (which ended up really small because half of my small didn’t show up to the second day of class) responded really well and were completely serious about the topic. I would have loved to have had my whole class come back, but the students who did come back were a great bunch. They provided intelligent and meaningful ideas about how to help someone who might be in a bad situation.

We also talked about getting Engaged on campus and finding activities that will help you meet people who have similar interests. This discussion ended with going to the Engage Fair that had booths with information about a lot of the organizations students can join.

Sunday

This was our last squad meeting together as Teal team 6. We did an activity where we would throw a ball of yarn around the circle and we had to say 1. our favorite moment, 2. how we grew as a leader, and 3. one thing we would never forget. We all agreed that one of the things we wouldn’t forget was the strong connection with our Teal squad. At the end of the activity we had a star of teal yarn to show how we were all connected.

The Teal Stars

Being an On Iowa! leader has been one of the best experiences and I met such awesome people, I would highly recommend being involved with it.

Now for the short rundown on the first week of class.
I have quite a few classes this semester that have a lot of homework so I’ll be pretty busy with that. On the better note, I have every class with at least one friend, so it makes it easier to work on homework together. I like my schedule so far (other than the awful power walk from one side of campus to the other) but I get all my lectures out of the way in the mornings. The first-years on my floor are getting used to lecture and will soon be going to their first chemistry lab (hence the title of this post, the TA’s always tell you not to ingest the chemicals). It’s been so great being an upperclassman on the WiSE floor. My friends and I have had so much fun getting to know the first-years. We’ve had multiple floor bonding moments in the middle of the hallway. Now whenever we walk out and see a group standing in the hallway, they’ll yell down, “Hey, hall bonding! Come down!” This is just one of the many hallway bondings.

One of our floor bonding moments 🙂 Sophomores and freshmen having fun with a cardboard box

We’ve also had a nail-painting and hair braiding party in my room which was a lot of fun. We keep adding people so we’re slowly getting to know the whole floor and each individual person.

This year is off to such an awesome start, I’m so excited. Last year seemed so awesome, I didn’t think it could get better. But this year has definitely surpassed those expectations. I can’t wait to see what the year will bring!

Hey Hawkeyes!

I hope everyone had a fantastic week! I really have to get better at this posting during the week, don’t I? I’ll work on that for this week. It’s been a crazy week, which I’m guessing since we only have 4 weeks of class left, every week will be crazy. This past week was my psychology test, this coming week is my calculus test, and the next week is my chemistry test. My plan is to take each test as it comes. Devote the whole week to that subject (hopefully not at the expense of the other subjects).

Last weekend kicked off the busy week with Society of Women Engineers (SWE)’s High School Conference. Basically, SWE hosts an event where high school girls can come learn about engineering and about what University of Iowa offers to engineering students. They sign-in Friday afternoon in the engineering building, followed by ice breakers to get to know everybody.

Sign In: every girl gets a bag with a schedule, campus map, engineering information, and a small notebook

The Get-To-Know-You ball. It had questions written all over it, so when you bounced it across the circle to someone they would catch it, say their name and answer the question under their right index finger.

When the group got really big, they split it into two circles where they continued to play games like Ninja(demonstrated in the picture), Hey, Me Too!, and the typical name games.

After sign-in and ice breakers, the girls were taken to one of the classrooms to learn more about Society of Women Engineers(SWE) and Women in Science and Engineering(WiSE).

Pretty full classroom, as you can tell.

Then we had breakout sessions where the girls picked a type of engineering to learn more about. After a 20 minute info session, they switched to another one. In the info sessions, the high school girls could ask questions about anything involving the major, engineering, or college in general. The SWE girls leading the session talked about classes and focus areas.

Biomedical info session

Civil Engineering

Chemical Engineering

Industrial Engineering

I didn’t make it to all the info session but they had all of the engineering types covered.

After the info sessions was dinner. We had Jimmy John’s subs and chips. The high school girls had the opportunity to talk to some professional women over dinner.

Talking to faculty and professionals at dinner

After dinner, there was a panelist of professional women to talk about the careers in engineering. The high school girls could ask anything they wanted about education, classes, internships, and careers in engineering.

Talking about being a woman in the workplace

After the professional panel, the girls had another type of panel come in. They had to guess which guys were engineers by asking questions like “How much time do you spend studying?” The guys were good at disguising their answers.

The “engineer” panel

Then it was time for dessert! Does this look familiar? The girls got to make ice cream in a bag, just like my chemical engineering seminar did.

Chemical Engineering at its finest 🙂

They really enjoyed it, other than the cold hands 🙂

We even got to make liquid Nitrogen ice cream again! The girls thought it was pretty cool too.

Yummy ice cream 🙂

And of course dancing to Backstreet Boys was a must 🙂

Some of the SWE girls having fun 🙂

The night ended with the girls making the trek from the Seamans Center to the WiSE floor in the residence hall to spend the night with the WiSE girls. The WiSE girls played games and just hung out with the high school girls until they all went to bed(somewhere around 2 or 3am).

Off to the dorms for movies, games, and snacks.

The conference was a lot of fun (not much sleep) and it was awesome to meet some of the girls who will hopefully be on the WiSE floor next year. The really cool part was that exactly one year before, I was in the same seats as the high school girls. I attended the SWE high school conference last year after I had made my final decision on where to go to college. I decided it would be the ultimate test. I would be on my own on campus, without my parents. Several girls that attended the conference with me even ended up in some of my classes, which was really cool. It was so nice to get to college and recognize a few faces. I was also able to recognize upperclassmen SWE and WiSE girls from the conference. After attending the conference and having such a great experience, it was awesome to help out and give other girls the same great experience. Just one of the awesome giving back volunteer opportunities of college! 🙂

Hey Hawkeyes!

In case you haven’t noticed from my blog posts (or lack thereof) it’s starting to get busy around here. Something about midterms? As you know I had my first chem exam 2 weeks ago and I did pretty well on that. I had a psychology test this past week and just recently(today) got my grade from that, which was also pretty good (yay! :)). This coming week I’ll have my first calculus test (eek!). I never really feel ready for a test, it always seems like there’s something I should know more about. I’ve been staying caught up in homework, but I’ve determined that in order to actually be ready for upcoming tests, I need to be ahead.

Quick update on my week (+ pictures :))

Last Friday I went to an indoor track meet to watch one of my friends from another University. It was amazing to see her running against all the college athletes.

One of our athletes getting ready to run. I think he won his race.

Hurdles

I went home for the weekend, which was awesome. I learned the Ultimate College Student’s Lesson: I can go for over a month without doing laundry. Since I live so close to home it seems silly to do laundry here, but with different volunteer things going on it’s hard to go home often enough to do laundry on a regular basis. I was also able to visit one of my friends who just got this adorable puppy!

Isn’t he adorable?!

On Tuesdays I have a Chemical Engineering Seminar for an hour in the afternoon. This past Tuesday found us talking about mixtures and how the amounts of components affect the product. Like in the making of ice cream, more air means not as good. So to demonstrate this….we made ice cream!!!!

Making the shake ice cream 🙂 Hands were a little cold afterwards.

Making liquid nitrogen ice cream

And what would a week be without

A study party!

I’m taking a photography class (that I’m absolutely loving other than the fact that it’s 5:30-9pm), and had an assignment to represent University of Iowa.

My friends decided to help out and make sure I knew where the Old Capitol was 🙂

I also got this picture, which I thought was cool

On Friday night I volunteered with the Society of Women Engineers at the Children’s Museum at Coral Ridge Mall for their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) Night. It was a ton of fun. We basically played with kids all night, which was awesome!

Playing around in the Hospital room before the kids started arriving.

Saturday was the FIRST Tech Challenge State Championships. In high school I participated in the robotics club and have fond memories of coming to the State Championships here at Iowa. So this year, I decided to volunteer.

Ring it up! The challenge for this year.

It was a great experience and it was awesome to see all the robots and meet so many new people, as well as see my high school team and coaches. I’m excited for next year so I can be more involved and maybe even volunteer at some of the qualifying competitions.

I’ll try to keep you guys updated more often, so watch for another post in the next couple of days! 🙂

Hey Hawkeyes!

Some of the new friends I’ve made in one of my classes

Just a quick update from me this time! The week started off a little hectic, but still fun none the less.

I’ve already made some new friends in a few of my classes. Here’s just one of the pictures from hanging out and talking after class. I’ll post more pictures later. They’re so much fun and I’m going to miss them when the class finishes in a couple weeks(it’s just a seminar). A cool story about this picture though: The guy on the left, the girl second from the right, and I all had the same  high school band teacher. Two separate high schools (he left my school and went to a different one) and we all met in this class. How awesome is that?! And it gets better: the band teacher graduated from University of Iowa! Yeah. Small world, huh? 🙂

On another topic, I had my first chem test last night. It went pretty well. I was really unsure about it. There were a few questions that I felt like I knew it, but I just couldn’t come up with the right process. But several questions took me forever to work out were actually correct, which made me feel good. I used the full time, which means that I kept trying instead of just guessing and getting it over with, so I was happy. I felt like I genuinely did my best. Granted yes, I should have studied a little more (the one question was so similar to one I had practiced but I just couldn’t remember it), but I know how to prepare for the next test. I’m also a bit more inspired because this semester is (so far!) starting off better than last semester as far as exams go.

Have a great day, talk to you soon!

Hey Hawkeyes!

Wow, we’re already almost a month into the semester. It seems like it’s going by so fast! I’m getting ready for my first chem test this week (AHHHHH!!!!!). But before the chem test, I had my first chem lab!  Our first lab talked about using cross-links to connect polymer chains together to create new substances with different properties. To test how the number of cross-links affect the product, we made our own polymers. In other words…. goo and a bouncy ball!

 It was a very fun lab, even if we did sort of run out of time. That was the fastest I have ever filled out a lab report (we’ll wait to get excited until we see the grade…). I feel like I really learned the material too.

After recovering from chem lab, I decided to try my motion photography at the swim meet last Friday. My friend/lab partner even came with me (thank you!). Since she was on swim team in high school, she was able to explain the different events to me.

Now that’s team spirit
Go Hawks!

Practicing dives

There’s a track meet that I’m excited about going to this weekend and hopefully get some pictures of that to share with you. I’m really enjoying going to all these different events and learning more about them. It’s also a nice break away from all the studying, especially if you have friends to go with.

Hopefully talk to you again soon!

Hey Hawkeyes!

I hope the first several weeks of the semester have been going well for everyone! I’ve been so busy with homework and I even have a few tests coming up (ahhhh!). I knew I was going to have a busy week, so last weekend I decided to have a little fun too. A girl on my floor volunteered to go to the women’s basketball game with me(thank you!) so I didn’t have to go alone. It was a lot of fun and a great experience. I had never been to a college basketball game before so this was a first for me.

The pep band before the game started(we got there pretty early)

The dance team(Spirit Squad) and the cheerleaders dancing to the fight song to start the game.

Good shot!

Shoot!

We ended up losing, which was sad. We fought hard though and the game almost went into overtime. We lost with a last second basket with :02 left on the clock. It was an awesome game, I just wish we could have won.

After the game I decided I should do some cleaning around my dorm. First on the list was wash dishes (I really should get on a more regular dish-washing schedule). I couldn’t get hot water, but decided I didn’t want to keep putting off washing them. I used a new dish cloth for the first time and ended up with this result. Isn’t it pretty? My favorite color is purple, you know. 🙂

Lesson Learned: watch out for dishcloths that might lose dye. Don’t wash them with any lighter colors! 🙂

After washing dishes, I checked my Hawkmail (University email account) to find out the steam plant had a power-outage and we would be without heat and hot water for approximately 4 hours. It was really not a huge issue for me. Our room is always too warm anyway (with the heat off it was actually quite comfortable) so I wasn’t too worried. I had actually wondered why our room was so comfortable when I walked in. I guess I just assumed my roommate had opened the window. In the email informing us about the power-outage, our Hall Coordinator recommended that we also avoid the showers for this time period. It made me laugh, the showers would not have been something I would have thought about until I was actually in the shower with the water on. I love that even in a big university, the staff still has a great sense of humor that they’re more than willing to share. It just makes everything feel more like a community rather than a school, especially in the dorms when you’re just looking for that home-y feel.

I actually have quite a bit more to talk about but those events also include a lot of pictures, so I’ll save that for a different post. Consider this one of my semi-mini-posts 🙂 I’m really excited to tell you all about the first chem lab of the semester 🙂

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!

I hope everyone had a great Halloween. I know this post is a little late, but it’s been a little busy around here.

A couple weeks ago, WiSE (Women in Science and Engineering) had a pumpkin carving event. It was a great way to relax and de-stress. We had apple cider and pumpkin bars. They also had designs printed out that we could trace for those of us who are completely uncreative(ahem, me).

Some girls from my floor getting ready to dig in, or rather cut in 🙂

Carving away

The two girls on the other side of the table from where I am paired up to make Pacman pumpkins. The one in the pink stripes on the right did Pacman while the one in the black on the left did one of the ghosts. It turned out really cute and since they’re roommates, they got to display their pumpkins in their doorway.

One of my friends saw this idea online and thought is was really cute. I think it turned out really well for her. I’m sure it looked very pretty all lit up.

Pumpkin guts and cut out shapes

There was bucket after bucket full of pumpkin seeds and guts. Some of the girls were saving seeds so they could go out to their friends in Mayflower and bake the seeds. We all had a lot of fun. We’re looking forward to the next WiSE event which is next month and will be cookie decorating (yummy!). I’ll make sure I take pictures so you can all see the, hopefully, pretty cookies.

Final Picture: Since we’re not allowed to have candles in the dorms, we were given battery operated candles to put in our pumpkins.

My pumpkin, not too original, but it looked pretty cool with the fake candle in it.

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! 🙂

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!