Sarah

Hey Hawkeyes!

I hope everyone survived finals week and has had a good break so far! For whatever reason the week before finals week is called dead week and I’m not entirely sure why. Although this year was actually the closest I’ve come to dead week; I had two assignments due and that was pretty much it. I’ve really enjoyed being able to have the opportunity to relax a little before finals and graduation. However, the last couple weeks of the semester also included a lot of my “lasts”.

• 

  Hawkeyes vs. Nebraska

  Last college Thanksgiving break

• Last football game as a student in Kinnick stadium(even if I did sit with my dad in the regular section-first Hawkeye game with my dad!)
• Last meeting with my advisor
• Last day of class
• Last homework assignments
• Last lunches/dinners with friends that have been part of my weekly schedule
• Last class as a TA
• Last finals
• 

  Finished my last final and ready to graduate!

  Last walk across campus

Even with all these lasts, I’m so excited for all the firsts that are in my future.

• First adult job
• First adult apartment
• First car

And all the other firsts that I have yet to discover. I’m so excited for the real world and all the opportunities to pursue. In one of my last classes, the professor took the time to give us life advice. She basically said to take every opportunity to try new things and have new experiences. We still have so much room to grow into the person we want to be so keep challenging what you think about the world and never stop learning. One of the guys that has come to talk to one of my professional seminars a few times has shared the concept of lifelong learning. If you aren’t constantly learning, you’re not really living. I’m ready for lifelong learning and the many adventures yet to come!

Hey Hawkeyes,

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving break. It always seems like it takes forever to get to break. I know I had a lot of issues staying focused on homework and lecture during the week leading up to break. However I was one of the lucky ones that didn’t have a midterm right before break so I could slack off a little bit. A lot of my professors were also extremely ready for break so they went easy on us as well.

You may have noticed my blog has been a bit quiet. It’s been a busy couple of weeks. The weekend before break I flew to San Francisco for a conference for one of my organizations. I’m part of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and they have a regional student conference in the spring with a national student conference in the fall. Regional conferences are held at a host university in that region. University of Iowa hosted the regional conference when I was a sophomore which is when I really got interested in this organization. I became the historian, tasked with recording all the things our chapter does, and awards we get. As part of the historian role, I also attend the national conference to take pictures of our students presenting and receiving awards. The national conference is held in a large city; I’ve been to Atlanta, Salt Lake City, and now San Francisco. Eighteen students from our chapter navigated airports and train stations to attend the conference. This was my first time in California so I was very excited. We had time to explore the city and got to meet a lot of people.

The Golden Gate Bridge! So excited to see this California symbol and learn about the engineering behind it!

I also had the honor of being involved in a presentation about our chapter’s outreach activities (I’ll have to do a blog post about that), so we had the opportunity to talk to students from universities across the country as they try to implement similar outreach programs.

University of Iowa also hosted an alumni reception while we were there so we spent an evening dressed up, eating fancy appetizers, and talking with alumni on the 40th floor of a hotel. It was really fun to talk to the alumni that are either currently working in California or retired in California about student life at the university. They were asking about some of their favorite restaurants, whether the library is still intimidating, and if the engineering building is still cold. We informed them that while the library is newly remodeled, the engineering building is still cold in certain rooms. We were also able to ask career advice and talk to them about engineering in the field. It was a really great experience and a cool way to spend an evening in a cool city.

This trip was very educational and very fun. It was cool to explore a new place and learn so much. I’m so glad that I got involved and really invested my time in this organization.

Hey Hawkeyes!

It’s starting to get a little chillier out which makes me excited! I love snow and can’t wait to wear scarves and boots. I’m still kinda surprised at how fast this semester is going. It seems like it’s flying by! We’re already in November and I’m about one month and a week away from graduating. When did that happen?! With the end of the semester and my time here at Iowa gets closer, I’ve been thinking a lot about the experiences I’ve had. One of these experiences is the opportunity to be a teaching assistant, or TA.

A lot of schools will have TAs teach the class and the students never interact with the professor. However with all of my classes, the teaching assistant was exactly that: an assistant. The TAs are there to help answer questions, grade homework, and help proctor tests. This is my second semester as a TA for the same class and I really enjoy it. The class I TA is a beginning engineering course, typically taken during the first semester. I love getting to interact with the first-years and watch them experience their first semester of college. They panic about deadlines and double check to make sure they’re doing things right. I find it really fun and rewarding to be the one to reassure them that they’re going to make it, they will pass their classes with hard work, and that they will in fact survive engineering.

There are a bunch of sections of this class, but the professor I work under is really dedicated to doing hands-on projects. In fact, it’s the same professor I had when I took the class four years ago. Most of the projects are the same so it’s been fun to see the freshmen in the same position I was in just a few years ago. I also really enjoy the variety of projects we get to help with and end up grading. One of my favorites is cookie coating. Yes, with actual cookies. Basically, we want to help them think about how to design a process with accuracy and precision while being able to convey those instructions in written form. So they get to pick cookies and a type of chocolate and come up with a way to uniformly coat the cookies with chocolate. As a TA, there was a ton of prep for the actual project, including weighing up the chocolate. The other TA and I learned a lot about chocolate amounts and how easy cookies break. The best part is after the process is complete, all of the students have to grade each other on several parameters, including taste. And the TAs, of course, have to try all the cookies to provide the most accurate grade.

$100 of chocolate and cookies, in case you were wondering

Another project is called reverse engineering. Each group chooses a toy from the box we provide and they must disassemble it and put it back together. In order to get full points, the toy must be operational at the end of the project. Once they know how it works, they present to the class about the toy and what improvements could be made. It’s always an adventure when the toys are used over and over and develop small issues. My TA partner never got to do this project so he got in on the action when a group couldn’t figure out why their toy couldn’t come apart. It turned out the screws were stripped, but we were able to get it apart and back together, and have it operational!

My co-TA playing with *cough* I mean fixing the toy

I’ve really enjoyed being a TA and I’m looking forward to see the designs this group comes up with for their final project. I’ll try to share updates as we get more into the final project of building disaster proof houses for developing countries!

Hey Hawkeyes!

One of the things I will miss most when I graduate will be football season with the Hawks. When I was in high school, I played in the marching band so there was a lot of preparation for football games and then we’d hang out with friends after the halftime show. As a college freshman, I decided not to get season tickets because I wasn’t all that interested in football. After discovering that a lot of the new friends I was making had season tickets and one of them was even in the marching band, I decided I would try going to a game and see what it was like. As it turns out, it was a lot of fun! Over the past 4 years I have learned a lot about football, developed a very strong sense of school spirit, lost my voice cheering, and had a blast with my friends at the games.

Hanging out with friends before the game starts!

Nothing quite matches the energy in Kinnick stadium on game day. The sea of black and gold, Back in Black playing on the loud speakers as the team comes out, the loud cheers. I recommend going early to get your choice of seats though; the student section fills up fast!

One of my favorite memories was last year (2015 season) during the night game and we had just gotten a touchdown, bringing the score within only a couple points difference. The cheerleaders started the normal I-O-W-A cheer that we do after each touchdown where each section of the stadium yells a letter. The energy was so high that the cheer kept going for over 10 minutes until we scored the next touchdown, putting us in the lead and eventually leading to a victory!

Picture with Herky for Homecoming!

There are so many great traditions with so many of the games, especially homecoming. I love going to the events during homecoming week. The parade is one of my favorites with getting to see floats from the student orgs, local marching bands, and the Hawkeye marching band. The College of Engineering puts on a little after-parade carnival for kids with games and prizes that are run by student organization members. It’s a fun way to get involved with the community and get to spend some time making kids happy.

This week (homecoming week!), I was just hanging out at work when I heard footsteps coming down the hall. One of my responsibilities at work is to greet people when they walk into the office so I look up to greet the visitor and it just so happens to be Herky! I guess he was visiting the engineering building for an event and decided to visit some of the students. I was so excited to be able to get a picture with him! Here’s to a win this Saturday!

Hey Hawkeyes,

The start of this school year was kind of a big moment. Since I am graduating in December, this was my last first day of school. It seems weird to think about. Every fall for as long as I can remember I’ve picked out an outfit, put on a new pair of shoes, and headed out with my backpack. I don’t think it has quite hit me yet; I think that will come in the middle of January when everyone else is headed back to school and I am (hopefully) working.

View while walking to class

We were lucky this year to have an absolutely beautiful first week of classes. No rain and cool temperatures. I was able to grab this picture walking across campus; the sky was absolutely perfect.

I was talking with a friend who graduated this past May and is now in grad school at another Big 10 school. She mentioned how different it is to not see the Old Capitol Building on her walk to classes. You never realize exactly what you’ll miss until you don’t have it anymore (kind of like your first home-cooked meal after being at college for a few weeks). So I guess my focus this semester is to appreciate everything and make sure I’m living in the moment and doing what makes me happy.

Last first day picture with Chester.

Part of that is having my fish at college. I know it seems weird, but it’s really nice. Over the summer at my internship, I would go back to an empty apartment after work. I desperately wanted a pet, and fish are a fairly cheap pet that don’t take up much space. I named him Chester and fed him every day when I got home from work. Turns out you can train fish through repetitive processes, so now he swims back and forth really fast and becomes much more active when I walk into the room; it’s almost like having a dog greet you when you get home. On my ‘last first day’ of high school I took a picture with my dog; so it seemed fitting on my ‘last first day’ of college to take a picture with my fish. Lesson learned: find what makes you happy and do whatever you can to achieve it; even if it’s just the little things in life.

Hey Hawkeyes!

I hope everyone is having a great start to their school year! It’s been a busy first few weeks. The week before classes started I had the amazing opportunity to be an OnLeader for the lean, mean Green Squad (not really mean). We fit in better with the VeggieTales rather than the green beans (long story involving a roll call we could never remember).

Tractor Tippers!

I absolutely love the On Iowa! program. When I came as a first-year, the program was only two years old. I have really enjoyed watching the program evolve and improve over the four years of being a leader. I have grown so much as a leader and made amazing friends through this program. I have gained skills in speaking in front of a group, planning a group discussion, time management, thinking on my feet, leading a group of people, handling unexpected situations, and working as part of a team (a very large team, as shown below). Along with all the fun and awesome friendships from On Iowa!, all of these experiences also look fantastic on a resumé. I have actually talked with many people at the career fair about On Iowa! and they are always impressed by what I’ve learned.

On Iowa! Leaders ready for the first day of the program

The leaders put so much effort and time into making sure we’re ready to welcome the first year students into the Hawkeye family. We want them to realize the importance of academic success and the weight of their choices as well as experience all the amazing opportunities and fun here. That’s a lot to accomplish in two days; luckily we have a whole team of captains and directors to support us. I highly encourage anyone who is looking for a great community and resumé builder to apply to be a leader.

Highlights from my past several years as a leader:

I already posted a picture of my cast from this year but here is my last small group picture. I hope I’ve had some impact on their lives, or at least made their first week a little bit better by explaining the bus system.

My last group of first years on Kinnick. They were a great group and I hope I was able to answer all of their questions.

Hey Hawkeyes,

I hope everyone has been staying warm the past couple of weeks! The wind has been particularly strong the last few weeks. It’s nice that it’s finally warming up a bit. We had some weird weather things where it would be 40˚ during the week and then 60˚ on the weekends. Fortunately, I have a lab class this semester that is plenty warm. I’m taking a Nanofabrication class that has a lab component which happens to be in a cleanroom. Apparently the dictionary definition of a cleanroom is a room that is clean. While this doesn’t mean much to people outside the “nano” world, it means a lot as far as nanofabrication. The nano-scale is so tiny that particles like dust can ruin the thing that you’re making. To prevent particles from contaminating all the projects, we get to wear these:

Ready for lab!

These cleanroom gowns, also called bunny suits, reduce the amount of particles that we produce. It has been a new experience going through the gowning procedure before lab as well as being in a lab where you can’t have anything with you. There is special clean room paper that is supposed to reduce particle formation. Due to the small space to help control airflow and the double layer of clothing, it gets plenty warm in the lab.

Most of what we’re learning about is done on industrial levels for manufacturing circuit boards and electronics so it’s cool to be able to do some of these processes. I think one of my favorite parts of my major has been getting to be in so many lab classes where we get to do the things we’re learning about. Although I may complain about the lab reports, I really like the actual lab portion. 

Talk to you guys soon!

Hey Hawkeyes!

I hope everyone is having a great school year so far. My level of busy-ness is what my math professor would call a beautiful exponential function. I thought that after the first week of school my schedule would balance out and I would fall into a routine. Yes, I know, I’m a junior now and I should know better. My activities are starting to get more active with volunteering, professional meetings, and workshops. On top of that, as the main reason that I’m here, my classes are really picking up as well. Going into this year, I was a bit nervous about all my classes and was considering dropping one of my classes. But then I went to the first day and decided I really liked the class and wouldn’t drop it. I’m still not sure if that was the right decision or not, but I still really like the class. The past couple of weeks have been pretty busy because of my class and homework schedule. So in summary of my last couple weeks:

It was so good to see Code Red again! We’re planning a Code Red dinner soon and I can’t wait to see them!

Lab Equipment

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have a 3-hour lab where we rotate through different experiments and then write a lab report about the experiment. The contraption above is from the experiment entitled “Jacketed Kettle”. The idea of this particular experiment was to study the rate of heat transfer in heating and cooling water with mixing versus just letting it sit. In case you’re wondering, if you’re trying to cool something quickly, you really need to mix it. To collect enough data to write a report about, one of my lab partners and I hung out in the lab for 4 hours one day just waiting for the water to cool from 90˚C to 30˚C. It was a long day, but we collected all the data we needed. At least we hope we did; we’re writing the lab report in the next couple of days.

Homework and report writing

After finishing the experiment, we write the lab report about it. The engineering building has a great space for working on group stuff, which also comes in handy when there’s a large group of us working on the same homework assignment. Luckily, the building has lots of table space. I spend a lot of time in this building so I’m getting to know a lot of the people who also do homework there. The Chemical Engineering department at University of Iowa is very close and I know the majority of my class as well as a quite a few people in the classes above and below me. I think it makes homework a little more enjoyable to work on it with a group of people, it adds a little more of a social aspect to it.

I’ll try to update my blog more regularly now that I’m used to the craziness of writing lab reports and doing homework.

Hey Hawkeyes!

I hope everyone had a great week! I managed to survive my first week of classes. Everyone always says the first week is just syllabus week and you don’t do anything. I’m not sure if it’s just because of my major, but I had homework by Wednesday of “syllabus week.” It wasn’t a lot (only two classes), but the other professors warned that there would be homework the following week. I had also made the incorrect assumption that it would be a relatively slow week with all the activities. As it turns out, every one of the organizations I’m involved in had their first meeting last week. It’s really surprising how the semester seems so long from the class/homework perspective, but when you’re trying to plan events the semester seems so short. We’re already in September, which leaves the rest of September, and just two more months to plan events, since December gets tricky with finals week. We can’t do an event every week (no one has that much time) but once a month is too spread out (and only like 3 events). I’m really excited about all the activities and the things we’re planning. It will make this year really busy, but it will be so much fun.

I had a really cool observation/realization last week. One of my classes (a photography class) is in Art Building West across the river from where most my classes are. I was completely fine until I was walking up the sidewalk to the building. Then I realized I was really tense. Why was I so tense? I was nervous. I was just a little bit terrified of walking into that building and knowing that every person I pass probably has more artistic talent than I do. What if they’re judging me about how I’m dressed or my little to non-existent creativity? Then I had a light-bulb moment: How many people walk into the engineering building and feel like everyone they  pass is probably way smarter? I may not be the smartest person in the engineering building, but I’m comfortable there because that’s where my friends are. Every building is the same way. Everyone has a different set of talents and everyone feels less competent in an area they don’t know as well. One talent isn’t better than the others. Just because I chose to major in chemical engineering, it doesn’t make art less important (or less cool; there’s some really cool things in the art building). We can all learn a lot from each other if we choose to be friends with people who have different talents as well as expand on what we already know by having friends with similar interests. Everything is easier once you’re comfortable with being in a new place and make a couple friends. Once I realized that everyone feels out of their element in a new building for a subject they don’t know much about, I felt a lot better. I met some cool people in my class and I can’t wait to learn more about artistic photography. It’s all about perspective.

After the first week was over, it was nice to have a long weekend. Especially when it started with a football game! I was so happy to have a large group to walk with and sit with. It definitely makes the games more fun when you have people to talk to and cheer with. I also have them explain parts of the game to me (I don’t understand football). I get the basics, but I miss a lot of the penalties.

My football group!

We left the East Side fairly early so we could get good seats in Kinnick; with the definition of good seats being that there were enough that we could all sit together.

Stadium smiles!

Just being in the environment at Kinnick is exciting. All the cheering and music really gets everyone’s school spirit pumped up. Even though football isn’t my favorite sport, I absolutely love going to the games with friends and cheering for the Hawkeyes. I love being in this stadium with all the black and gold on a Saturday morning. I can’t wait until we have a bit more fall-like weather so it’s a bit cooler. The weather at this last game wasn’t too bad. It was a bit warm, but nothing compared to last year. I hope it will be a really mild fall/start of winter and that we continue winning! It definitely makes the hours in the sun worth it if we win! On Iowa-Go Hawks!

Go Hawks!

Hey Hawkeyes!

It’s been a busy weekend! Saturday was an awesome day for On Iowa! Ok, it was still a little too warm and humid but it was great besides that. We had some great discussions about what it meant to excel at Iowa and what activities we wanted to engage in. We also discussed bystander intervention in tough situations. This discussion was what I was most nervous for, but I had no reason to be. My small group students were extremely mature and took this discussion very seriously without making it kind of dark and depressing. I am extremely proud of how all my first year students responded when I asked them for one way they, as individuals, would feel comfortable reacting to a situation in which someone may need help. They did so well with that discussion that I also talked with them about the benefits of delaying drinking. They had some questions for me and they responded really well to it. They did such a great job discussing these tough topics and were such responsible adults about the situations that I didn’t get to play all the icebreaker games I had planned. I’m totally Ok with that though. Our discussions were much more valuable and I think (hope) it made them feel more prepared for the responsibility they have now that they’re in college. They will truly uphold our Hawks Helping Hawks commitments. I’m really happy I had such an amazing group. I couldn’t have asked for a better group. I hope they all have an awesome year and that they remember me enough to wave when I excitedly wave at them in passing on campus. I hope I was able to impact them in some way and make their first year in this amazing journey just a little bit easier. At the President’s Block Party following convocation, I saw two of my students hanging out and it made me so happy to see that at least they both felt like they had a friend to sit with and eat dinner with for that day. I hope they stay friends and that the rest of the group will also say hi to each other when they walk by on the way to class. All these hopes and experiences are the reasons why I put so much time and energy into being an On Iowa! leader. It really is incredibly rewarding and I love having the chance to help a few new students have a better year because they(hopefully) felt comfortable asking all their questions.

Sunday was the day Code Red said goodbye. It was really “see you later,” but it seemed like it was goodbye since we wouldn’t be spending hours and hours together anymore.

Red Squad: Code Red!

We did an activity that I did last year with Teal Squad, where we have a yarn ball that gets thrown around the circle and we make a web. Whenever a person caught the yarn ball they had to say why they joined On Iowa! and how they think it helped them. We had some very personal stories in Code Red in which people said that Code Red had helped them overcome some very big issues. A lot of us(me included) were tearing up listening to our friends share their achievements.

Our red web. We’re all connected and will always remember each other! Go Red Squad!

After this extremely touching activity. We decided we needed to quit crying (after the huge group hug) and play some of our favorite icebreakers (yay!). After 5 minutes of icebreakers we were laughing so hard some of us were crying again. I loved my whole squad so much. They had such fantastic, unique personalities! They really taught me what it means to be yourself and find your own style of leadership. One of the things I showed my students was a video from Kid President, his pep talk to students and teachers. In the video, Kid President talked about how we’re teaching the world something everyday and that we need to realize what we’re teaching the world around us. We need to be teaching the world who we are and what we believe. I think it’s true for everyone and it made me think about what goals I want to achieve this semester. I’m working on writing them all down and making sure I’m sticking to them.

The first day was pretty uneventful. I was one of the lucky ones who didn’t get rained on and my first class of the day was even cancelled. I also had mentor training for the Women in Science and Engineering mentoring program. I’m so excited that I live so close to my mentee again this year and that she seems to like me as well! I also love the fact that my mentee from last year still hangs out with me. I absolutely love everything I’m involved with this year. I’m so excited for everything I’ll get to be a part of!

I’ll try and update again at the end of the first week to let you know how the whole first week went!

By the way, holding to tradition: I’m cautiously optimistic for Polymer Chemistry 🙂