The End is Nearing!

Sorry I have not posted for a while. I have been so busy this semester. I guess I will fill you in with what I have been doing for the past month.

The first full week of March was Spring Break. I did not do anything exciting over that week, but I did the following weekend. Over St. Patrick's Day weekend, I went to New York City with my church choir, St. John Collegiate Ensemble. I sing at church every Sunday with Collegiate Ensemble and we put on a concert once a semester. We were invited to sing the Faure Requiem at Carnegie Hall conducted by MSU's own Dr. Rayl.

We had rehearsal for a few hours each day, but we had time to do some fun activities as well. I went to Times Square, Central Park, the New York Public Library, Chinatown, and Little Italy to name a few places. One night we went to see Disney's Newsies on Broadway, which had excellent singing and dancing. I would recommend the Original Broadway Cast Recording of Newsies to anyone. I also saw an overwelming amount of famous art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Here is a picture of me with Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night at MoMA:

 

Women's Glee Club also sang at a festival in Big Rapids two weekends ago. Seeing other college women's groups like ours perform was a great learning experience. Getting to know some of the glee club girls outside of class was also a lot of fun. We also had a Glee Club lock in in the Music Practice building on Friday so that we could spend more time together outside of class.

 

I am really glad that I am also involved with other groups in the East Lansing area that are not related to engineering. There are so many different student groups and organizations that are open to all majors. There are also so many churches and religious groups near campus if you want to be involved with that as well. Sparticipation, the huge extracurricular activity fair at the beginning of the year, has representatives from so many different student groups that are open to all students.

 

Since the end of the year is nearing, a lot of student groups held elections for their E-boards for next year. I was elected the Sophomore Representative of AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) for next year. Serving on the E-board of a club is a great way to get involved and gain leadership experience. I know that leadership experience is very important to a lot of companies who hire co-ops, interns, and full-time engineers.

Three weeks from today, I will be taking my last final of the semester! I can't even believe it! This semester has been crazy busy for me, but the time has really gone by! Michigan State is feeling more and more like my home every day.

I ACED MY CALCULUS EXAM!!!

Today I took my second exam in Differential Equations, and I got an A!!!! My first exam score was awful, so I knew that I needed to change my study habits in order to bring my grade back up where it belongs. One of the main reasons that my exam score increased so much was the Math Learning Center (MLC) here on campus.

Differential Equations meets four times a week: three times for lecture and once for recitation. In recitation, we are allowed to work on our homework sets while a TA answers questions. During the last ten minutes of the 50-minute period, we take a short quiz. I spend my recitation doing my homework with the guy who sits next to me because he generally has helpful tips and tricks for doing the problems. Every time I would ask him where he learned how to do a problem a certain way, he would say that he learned how at the Math Learning Center. Because the MLC helped him so much with his homework, I decided that I should go.

Last week I went with a friend to the MLC in Wells Hall, which is right across the street from the Engineering Building and next to the International Center. The Wells Hall location is the main MLC location, but each campus neighborhood has a smaller MLC location with limited hours. If you want more information about MLC locations and hours, go to the following website: https://www1.math.msu.edu/mlc/

There were plenty of math TAs who could help me individually with my homework. Because the exam problems are almost exactly like the homework, it really helped having a TA teach me how to do a difficult problem at my own pace. Discussing the problems with the other students was also helpful. The tables were arranged by calculus level, so I was surrounded by people taking the same class as me. Best of all, the MLC is free so I was able to do better in math without having to hire an expensive tutor!

 

 

Last semester, I did not visit the MLC, but I did attend the review sessions held by the MLC. The evening before each exam, a TA did some review problems on the board. The sessions lasted 2 hours (from abuout 7-9pm) and took place in one of the lecture halls right by the Starbucks in Wells Hall.

 

I am glad that MSU has the resources available to help me become a better student and do better in my classes. I plan on continuing to take atdvantage of those resources by visiting the Math Learning Center regularly for the rest of the semester.

Fajitas!!! ... I mean AIChE

Tuesday night I went to a meeting for the MSU chapter of AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers). About twice a month, AIChE would gather and invite representatives from different companies to give presentations. Many of the representatives are MSU engineering alumni who talk in depth about what they do at their jobs, give specific information about their company, and answer any questions that people may have. There are similar groups for other engineering majors to network and learn about jobs in their fields. Most of the time, the companies also give us food!!! GM provided Noodles & Co at the SWE meeting on Wednesday, and Bemis provided the fajita bar from Moe's Southwest Grill that you see in the picture below:

At this meeting, two representatives from Bemis presented. Bemis makes a lot of materials used to package everyday items. Both of the representatives were engineers that worked on optimizing and producing a special type of film for meat packaging. They elaborated on the processes of producing the different types of film and how they adjusted the films to fit their customers' needs.

 

I like going to AIChE because I get to learn about different companies and what kinds of jobs chemical engineers do there. Going to these meetings helps me decide what companies I might want to intern with or work for. Even if I do not find the presentation suitable for me, the experience is still valuble because it helps be determine what kinds of jobs I do not want to do. After going to this meeting, I now know that I do not want to engineer films and materials for packaging food, and I was able to figure this out while eating a tasty fajita!

 

 

Design Day

Yesterday was the College of Engineering's Design Day at the MSU Union. Every semester on the last day of classes, people from some of the engineerings classes present their projects at Design Day. Engineering students of all grade levels and majors present, even freshmen. Some groups from EGR 100, the Cornerstone introductory design course required for all engineering majors, present their design projects. Most of the groups are there presenting their projects for their Capstone senior design courses, which are often funded by actual companies. Also, students from local high schools come to learn about engineering, see the design projects, and vote for their favorites.

Classes are now over for the semester and final exams are this week. I cannot believe that the semester is just about over! Now I need to study for my exams and start packing up some of my stuff for winter break.

Glee Club Concert

This Tuesday was the Men's Glee Club and Women's Glee Club concert at the Wharton Center. I sang in a lot of choirs when I was in high school, so I decided to sign up for Women's Glee Club this semester and spring semester.

Women's Glee Club is a 1 credit hour class open to all girls, and no audition or experience is required. Class meets from 4:10-5:30 on Mondays and Wednesdays. The grade in the class is based on participation and showing up on time to class, the concert, and an additional choral music concert. We spend each class period learning and practicing each of the songs that we sing at the concert.

The Men's Glee Club is also a 1 credit hour class that is open to all guys. No audition or experience is required, and class meets from 4:10-5:30 on Tuesdays and Thurdays. There are optional activities that the members can do, such as singing at tailgates and going on tour to Europe. I am SO jealous! I have a few friends that are in Men's Glee Club, and they really like it.

We sang a total of 8 songs in 3 different languages: English, Latin, and Italian. All of the songs we sang from memory except for one. The amount of music we were able to learn and memorize in such a short amount of time really impressed me. All of the pieces we sang were so varied, all from different time periods and genres and telling different stories. The Austrian composer Mozart, who died in 1791, composed "Ricevete" which was from the opera "Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)." On the other hand, Andrea Ramsey, who composed "Let All the World in Every Corner Sing," is a contemporary American composer who is still alive today. She actually came to our concert, and she really liked what we did with the piece! "Gaudete" was a combined number that the men and women sang together. I actually had a duet at the beginning of the song.  Singing at the front of the stage and looking into the audience was so cool!

Taking part in one of the glee clubs still allows me to be involved with music even though I am not majoring or minoring in music.

Halloween with SWE

I hope that all of you had a great Halloween! Since I didn't have any plans, I went to a Halloween party hosted by SWE, the Society of Women Engineers.

SWE is one of the organizations on campus geared toward female engineering students. Even though the club focuses on women students, men are welcome to join. There actually were a few guys at the meeting! Generally SWE supplies food and invites representatives from different companies to speak at their meetings. I have not been able to go to a lot of them because AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) almost always meets at the same time.

Since it was Halloween, they had pizza, candy, and a costume contest (with prizes!) instead of the usual presentation. After everyone settled in, the board members gave a presentation on becoming a nationl member of SWE. The Society of Women Engineers is a national organization with members all across the country. National members have access to scholarships and career resources that are not available to other students. It costs money to become a national member ($20 a year for students or $50 for all of college + 1 year as a professional), but it can be worth it if you take advantage of all the opportunities that being a national member offers.

MSU's chapter of SWE also organizes different social and volunteer events. This year, they already visited a cider mill, held a movie night, and hosted a tailgate. At the meeting, they also discussed bringing a group of volunteers to the humane society and the Ronald McDonald House.

Joining a group like SWE could help you get involved with the community of Spartan engineers, greater East Lansing community, and a community of professional engineers across the country.

Classes

I have focused a lot on a lot of the events going on around campus, but I really haven't mentioned much about my classes except to say that I was busy studying for midterms. That is quite ironic, because the main reason I am at college is to take classes and complete my degree. I better talk about some classes then!

All engineering majors need to complete a specific set of classes with at least a certain technical GPA (depending on the major) in order to be admitted into the College of Engineering. Calculus 1 and Calculus 2 are among these requirements. I know that my major, Chemical Engineering, requires both Multivariable Calculus and Differential Equations as well, but I am not so sure about the degree requirements for the other majors. This following link has information on the degree requirements for each of the majors:
http://www.egr.msu.edu/undergraduate/academic/degree-programs

Right now, I am in Multivariable Calculus, more commonly called Calculus 3. I took AP Calculus BC my senior year of high school, and I scored high enough to receive course credit for both Calculus 1 & 2. I worked hard during calculus and I had a really great teacher, so I was really prepared for college calculus. At first I was worried about making the transition into college classes in general, but I took AP classes and other challenging classes all throughout high school, which really helped me make the transition. I would recommend to take AP or other similar classes while in high school, because it really prepared me for college and saved me time and money! Just for taking the AP Calculus BC exam and scoring well, I earned a total of 7 credits for 2 classes required for my engineering major.

Here is a link to the course equivalencies at MSU just in case you are interested:
http://admissions.msu.edu/admission/freshmen_AP-IB-CLEP.asp

Each class and professor are different, but I could describe how my calculus class works since many other classes follow this same basic format.

My larger lecture meets on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for 50 minutes. There are no more than 80 people, which is small for a lecture. Even though that class size is about 3 times larger than a high school class, it really does not feel that large, especially since I sit closer to the front. The class size will be much smaller once I get into the higher level engineering classes. My professor spends the class explaining each day's topic and doing a few examples of different problems. Really it is not very different from my high school classes, except for the fact that the seats are much closer together and the desks are tiny!

Each Tuesday, I have a 50 minute recitation. It takes place in a classroom with about 20 people. A graduate student TA spends most of the class answering any questions on the homework or content that anyone may have. The last 15 minutes of each recitation is reserved for a really short quiz over the past few lessons. Our exams are 50 minutes long and take place during the recitation period for which they are scheduled.

The four exams make up most of our grades with a small portion (about 14%) coming from the quizzes. We have assigned homework problems, but so far none of it has been graded. The biggest difference that I have noticed between high school and college is that for most of my college classes, homework makes up only a small portion of my grade, if any. Exams make up the majority of my grades. Seriously I only have one grade so far in my honors archaeology class, which is my first exam score.

So that is the basic format of most of my classes. Overall, classes have been going well. Speaking (well, writing) of class, I better head to class right now!