Metal Casting Lab – MSE 281

Involvement Week/Classes

Between the involvement fair and classes this first week, I have been really busy.  I am a member of a group called Saint Paul’s Outreach (SPO) and we have had events almost every night for the last week.  On top of that, I started MSE 401 which is thermodynamics and MSE 526 which is transport phenomena.  Between these two subjects I think my mind will be conceptually challenged.  Luckily one of my other classes, junior seminar, will not be bad because we only have to attend and ask questions. I had heard a rumor that we would have to write a paper for each seminar, which of course would have sucked, but thankfully that proved to be not true.  My other classes seem to be straight forward, but will still be a lot of work.  By working with my friends throughout the quarter, we should be able to do well in all our classes.

I really enjoy having a core set of friends that I can trust to work with and know that they will challenge me to continue to think outside the box to solve the problems and not just give me the answers.  It has been really important for me to solve the problems on my own, but with people around me that help me when I get stuck.  It is also great to have a group outside of school that allows me to focus on other things, like my faith, instead of school 24/7.  Having time to grow in my faith in Christ has allowed me to grow into a stronger man and a more devoted and passionate person.

Without the support from all of my friends, both MSE and SPO, I think college would be a lot harder than it is.  I know when I was a freshman I was tempted to get to know as many people and join as many groups as possible, which is would not have been hard since there are 40,000+ students and 800+ groups, but it has been those few good friends and things that I am a part of that have really been what I needed.  It is great to be a part of many things, but we can only give so much time to each thing and thus that is why I focus on just a few things, so I can better serve and grow within each one.

JB

How to succeed in school without really trying

Since I’ve been in school for, oh, forever, I thought I’d offer up some words of wisdom in honor of the beginning of the school year. I TA a freshman-level engineering class (hello, past and future students!) and over the last couple of years, there are a few trends I’ve noticed and have tried in my excruciatingly subtle way to bring to an end, to little avail. So now I’ve decided to lay it out there for the entire world to savor.

Don’t talk back to the instructional staff

There’s no faster way to cause your teacher to avoid helping you than talking back to him or her. Perhaps the other TAs and I are a bit passive-aggressive when it comes to this, but seriously, we won’t answer your questions if you’re going to act like an entitled, smart-mouthed brat. Chances are good that your classmates aren’t going to want to put up with your behavior either.

In other words, college is a great time to make friends. Don’t miss out.

Dress and groom appropriately

Ladies, don’t dress for class as if you’re going out clubbing. Especially if you’re giving a presentation in class, cover yourself up. Yes, people will remember you if you don’t cover up, but they will remember you for the wrong reason.

Gentlemen, please shower. Please, please, please. At least every other day, “whether you need it or not.” Don’t walk around the classroom in your bare feet, and please don’t rub your bare feet all over the chair, desk, computer, etc.

Girls and guys, if your pants don’t cover your underwear on their own, please invest in a belt. I don’t want to know everyone’s underwear preference before I know everyone’s name.

To extend this topic to internships, here are some words of advice from my co-op mentor from two summers ago: Dress not for the job you have, but for the job you want to have.

Take responsibility for your own education

Be proactive in class. Ask questions when you really don’t understand something or feel that you’re falling behind in class. Visit your professors in their office hours and come prepared with questions or comments for them regarding the class. I remember that at my freshman orientation session, the professor who spoke advised us not to discount the importance of visiting our professors in their office hours. That’s the primary way an instructor is able to associate your name with your face and the fact that you are intellectually curious (which is always a trait they like to see). Also, professors get lonely during their office hours when no one visits them. Go introduce yourself – and hope that they don’t already know your underwear preference.

Textbooks

So this has been a long time coming but now I am here to update you as a Junior in Materials Science and Engineering at The Ohio State University.

In preparation for the upcoming Autumn quarter I recently endeavored to find my books early, which was a first for me, and it has been pretty simple and painless.  Now I just need the books to come in. My little sister showed me.  I know how that reads, but she is an incoming freshman and the university always gives updates to the freshmen: how to use ohiostate.bncollege.com to find books required for my classes even before the teacher released the syllabus.

This came in very handy for my GEC and EDU PAES classes but unfortunately MSE has not registered the classes I was looking for. So, my sister and I went to SBX and found the ISBN number of my MSE 526 book. At home I then went to Amazon, found the book like $30 cheaper and bought it online.  I suggest trying the two methods I used to find the textbooks at a cheaper price.

This is just one of many posts to come.  I promise, and once I make a promise I keep the promise.

Another reason to love Ed Begley, Jr.

“Hey, Cait! Is this what you do?” my dad called from across the house. He was watching football – it was Sunday, after all – and I was making headway with The Stand.

“Is what what I do?” I called back, not wanting to budge from my favorite reading chair.

“Come here,” he said, and I obeyed. “Look at this commercial.” He rewound the DVR and pressed play at the beginning of a Ford commercial. A woman explained to the camera how she was working to make the Ford Escape Hybrid a more eco-friendly car. There were a couple of laboratory action shots – foam in a beaker and the like.

“Yup. She’s probably a chemical engineer since she’s working with polymers,” I explained. “But she could totally be a materials engineer. That’s the kind of stuff I could do once I graduate.”

“Cool!” he said, then switched the television back to “live” for the football game. I’m not sure whether the “cool” was for the potential job diversity I am looking at, or if it was for the “eco-friendly” aspect of the car design.

You see, my parents are recent halfhearted converts to the green movement. Years of my encouragement to at least separate bottles and paperboard from the rest of the trash produced a variety of excuses from my parents, excuses that were peppered with comments regarding the obvious annoyingness of my behavior. Eventually my earnest “Yay, recycling!” nagging was met with silence in the hope that I’d shut up already about separating trash and go hug my trees in peace.

Ed Begley, Jr.

But now – now that Ed Begley, Jr., comes sashaying into my parents’ home three to four times a week flaunting the coolness of his ultra-green lifestyle on “Living with Ed” on the Planet Green television network, my dad is researching residential wind turbines and solar panels. Wind turbines and solar panels are very much part of a materials-oriented industry. Those monstrously large turbine blades need to be made from a material that’s stiff, relatively lightweight, and relatively inexpensive (to name a few critical properties), and then there are a variety of environmental conditions that need to be taken into consideration in their design. Who better to do this than a materials engineer?

Anyway, about my dad’s wind turbine and solar panel research: he realizes that this is a little ridiculous, considering the fact that he lives in an area with an average wind speed of about three miles per hour and maybe twenty sunny days a year. But still, Ed Begley, Jr., and his neighbor, Bill Nye the Science Guy, have my dad interested in helping to save the environment! I love Ed Begley, Jr.