Thoughts on Transport Phenomena

Transport was the class that I was most excited to take this semester because the subject matter, fluid mechanics and heat transfer, aligns pretty closely with my greatest interests in mechanical engineering. At the same time, I wasn't sure what to expect. The class is normally taught by a professor who is on leave this year, and I found out in August that my professor would be a visitor from University of Texas at El Paso. As a result, the class was definitely an experiment, and not just in the normal Olin ways! My thoughts on Transport are below the fold.

Thoughts on Dynamics

Friday was Expo, the last day of the semester. I’m more than a third of the way through college, which feels a little weird.

For some reason this semester didn’t feel like it was ending until the very end. Midway through the semester, I still caught myself thinking that it was just the beginning. I’m not sure why this was; I was definitely learning, so in general it wasn’t that I didn’t think we had covered enough material for it to be that far into the semester.

The class in which I learned the most this semester was Dynamics, which is a mechanical engineering requirement. It was also the class into which I put by far the most time. Below the fold are my thoughts on Dynamics.

Time

This has been one of those semesters when it never stops feeling like the beginning. I keep having to remind myself that it's Thanksgiving break now and that after break there are only two weeks of class and then a week of finals.

When I stop and think about it, though, it feels like it's been a really long semester. This past week, I looked back at my Dynamics notes from the first couple of classes and wondered what it would be like to do the first Dynamics assignment again now. I can tell that I've learned so much in that class. A lot of times it doesn't feel like it because nothing seems to get easier, but that's because there's always new material. When I wasn't looking, what would have been entire problems at the beginning of the semester became single steps.

When school started, I expected to take three language tests this semester: a Portuguese reading and listening test, the DALF French exam, and the DELE Spanish exam. I took the Portuguese test in late September, and it went really well, but I'm not going to take either of the other two. The DELE was supposed to be this past weekend, but at some point in the past year the Cervantes Institute in Boston closed, so I would have had to go to New York to take the test. With other commitments, that would have been feasible but not much fun. I'm not taking the DALF simply because I haven't put in enough prep time to feel comfortable.

On paper, this semester doesn't look that different from last semester. The only noticeable difference is that I added a second NINJA job. In fact, I'm spending fewer hours in class this semester. My Wellesley class meets for 140 minutes a week, not 200 like an Olin class, and last semester I had Bio lab, which ate two and a half hours on Wednesday afternoons. Despite that, I feel like I have far less free time.

What's contributing to that? First of all, Dynamics. Dynamics is the first class I've had at Olin other than Design Nature into which I regularly put 12 hours of work a week. 12 hours a week is what a four credit class is supposed to be, but for most classes, I don't actually do that many hours of work. For Dynamics, though, over the past three weeks I have spent more than 50 hours working. That's more than normal, but I'm never surprised to spend a lot of time doing Dynamics. I knew going into the class that it would take more time than any of my others -- that's just the reputation it has -- but I think I'd forgotten what that felt like.

Second, I put about as much time into my two NINJA jobs together as I do into Dynamics, so that adds up to more than a normal class for me, whereas last semester my weekly hours were more like a light workload class (5 hours a week). NINJAing has been one of my favorite parts of the semester. I love talking about math with people, and I've even enjoyed the grading. Discrete grading is reading people's proofs, which is always interesting. Linearity grading is much more rote, but it can be relaxing.

It feels like those shouldn't be the only two factors, but they're the only major ones I've managed to identify. My other classes and activities seem like they come out about even when I compare the two semesters. It will be interesting to see what happens next semester. I'm taking Thermodynamics, The Entrepreneurial Initiative (FBE), a Wellesley French class, and User-Oriented and Collaborative Design (UOCD), and I'll NINJA a couple of math classes and do research again. UOCD is a lot of class time, and the amount of out-of-class work varies by team, but the other classes aren't known as huge time commitments.

Majors, Gender, and First-Year Courses

I'm treasurer for the Olin chapter of Society of Women Engineers this year, and the national conference was a few weeks ago! Olin sent eight students. We met lots of people, went to the career fair, and listened to some interesting sessions, so I'd definitely say it was a successful trip. Something I found very interesting was how different the general SWE population was from Olin's female population in terms of fields of engineering.

Before the conference, we had decided to sell t-shirts, and the SWE members at Olin had voted on a design made up of circuit components that spelled out SWE. There's a picture below! The 'S' is a power source, the 'W' is a resistor, and the 'E' is a loop of wire. A lot of us thought this was a clever design. Olin is about 1/3 Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) majors, and though there's some variation in major by gender, ECE is about half and half, like the school as a whole. We're also all required to take circuits classes (Modeling and Control and Real World Measurements) during our first two semesters at Olin. Even if they aren't our favorite classes, we all come away with circuit literacy and generally aren't afraid of circuit-related work.

SWE t-shirt!

A Week in the Life of a NINJA

This semester I'm a NINJA for two classes, Linearity II and Discrete Math. Each week is different, but in honor of National Tutoring Week, here's a "week" that has proven to be representative so far:

Monday
Lunchtime Linearity grading party. All four NINJAs gather around a table on the Dining Hall Mezzanine, eating lunch and grading the same problem ~80 times. At the end of lunch, Studio (problem set) k is graded and just needs to be entered. Studio k+1 is usually in my backpack and needs to be graded still.
I go to Linearity right after lunch. For the lecture part of class, I sit in the back entering grades and writing solutions for Studio k+2, which is due today. When I'm done with solutions, I send them out to the profs and the other NINJAs for comments/corrections, and when I'm done entering grades, I pass back Studio k. When there's time to work on problem sets after lectures, I help people with Studios k+3 and k+4.
As I leave the classroom, the professors hand me the stack of Studio k+2s.

The Discrete assignment is due the next day. The other NINJA has office hours tonight, but they're always really busy, so around 9:00 I get an email from a team asking if I'm free at all that night. Sometime between then and midnight I spend between thirty minutes and an hour talking people through proofs.

Tuesday
This is a relatively light day. If I have already talked with the other Linearity NINJAs about splitting up the grading for Studio k+1, I might work on that. (In that case, each person has about 20 papers, grades a problem, and then passes the stack on to someone else and gets another stack.) On Tuesday afternoon the Discrete prof will leave a packet of Discrete assignments for us in her mailbox. One of the NINJAs picks those up to start grading them.

Wednesday
I maybe grade Linearity, maybe grade Discrete. In the evening I look over the new Discrete assignment and then hold office hours for an hour and a half on Wednesday night! Since the assignment is new, most of the questions are about approach as opposed to how to write the proofs. There's a pretty consistent group of people that comes to these office hours.


Thursday
Another lunchtime Linearity grading party, or maybe just an entering party. If the grading for Studio k+1 was split up for each NINJA to do in his/her free time , this is for finishing that up, totaling all the scores, and then entering the grades. Then maybe we can start grading Studio k+2! If we didn't split up the grading, then this is Studio k+1 time.
After lunch, I go to Linearity. During the hour-ish of lecture I do more grading and enter grades. For the last thirty or so minutes of class I answer questions as people work, update the professors as to how things are going, hand back graded studios, and get a new stack of them.

At this point, if I picked up Discrete assignments on Tuesday, I'll have started working on the grading.

Friday
It's my turn to be the in-class Discrete NINJA! I print 20 copies of the in-class exercise the professor emailed to me and go to the 9AM Discrete class. There, I hand out the assignment and then walk around the room answering questions. The last thirty minutes of class will be more lecture/discussion-ish, so during that time I grade.
That afternoon, I have a meeting with the other NINJA and the professor. We go over what to look for in grading the assignment that will be due the next Friday, we discuss what we've noticed in office hours, class, and grading, and the other NINJA (Marguerite) and I give an update on your grading progress. If things have gone well, I'll either pass off a stack of Discrete grading from Marguerite or receive such a stack, but usually that happens on Saturday.

Saturday
Grading, grading,... in September, if Babson Baseball had a scrimmage, I'd go grade there! (Unfortunately, the season is now over....) Grade some Linearity if we've split up a Studio, and depending on which NINJA picked up the Discrete assignment, I could have a stack of Discrete. As I wander through the dorms throughout the day, I usually end up answering Linearity questions.


Sunday
I glance over the two Linearity studios that students are currently working on (both the graded and ungraded parts because people ask questions about both!), and then I have an hour of office hours in the evening! There will possibly be more grading (there's almost always more grading).

Transport Mystery

We started our first Transport Phenomena lab on the very first day of class. (Welcome to Olin.) To get a sense for fluid properties and some of the fluid instruments in the lab, we were given mystery fluids to identify based on our measurements of their surface tension, density, viscosity, thermal conductivity, and pH.

We split up into pairs, and each pair chose a fluid. My partner was Lise, who is also in Por Supuesto and on the Society of Women Engineers board with me. Before working with the mystery fluid, though, we practiced making measurements on water and compared our results to known values. After that, we moved on to the mystery fluid.

Year Two!

I'm officially a sophomore!

I came back to Olin on Tuesday, and classes started on Thursday. Below the fold is a basic overview of what I'm doing this semester, including classes, work, and activities.

How I'm Spending My Summer

Oliners do lots of different things over the summer. It's most common to have an engineering internship or do research, at Olin or somewhere else, but there are people who are biking across the country, studying in Hungary through AIT, working at Olin in the library or for facilities or Post-Graduate Planning, teaching sailing, or working as a counselor at a summer camp.

This summer I'm living here:

Studying here:

Classroom at the Azerbaijani University of Languages

Eating this:

Gutab!

And also this:

Vegetables, bread, tomatoes, and juice

Visiting this:

Yanar Dag

Looking out my window at this:

Walking here:

The Bulvar along the Caspian Sea

And in general, learning lots of Azerbaijani and enjoying Baku!

Reflections on Second Semester, Part 4

This is the last of four posts looking back at the semester that just ended. The posts are split up by class or activity. This post focuses on non-academic or non-Olin activities.

Reflections on Second Semester, Part 3

This is the third of four posts looking back at the semester that just ended. The posts are split up by class or activity. This post focuses on doing math research and being a NINJA for Linearity I.

Reflections on Second Semester, Part 2

This is the second of a few posts looking back at the semester that just ended. The posts are split up by class or activity. This post focuses on my other two classes, Principles of Modern Biology and Real World Measurements (RWM).

Reflections on Second Semester, Part I

This is the first of four posts looking back at the semester that just ended. The posts will be split up by class or activity. This post focuses on two of my four classes, Partial Differential Equations (PDE) and Waves.

Build Day

Merriam-Webster defines the intransitive verb to build as:
1. To engage in building (the art or business of assembling materials into a structure)
2a. To progress toward a peak
2b. To develop in extent

May 3, 2013 was the first ever Olin Build Day, and the idea was to build both the Olin campus and the Olin community. Build Day was student led, but everyone on campus participated -- students, faculty, staff, and even some local alumni. We cleaned the stockrooms, built a phone/Skype area in the dorms, wrote postcards to hundreds of alumni, talked about how to improve course evaluations, painted and hung the paintings all around the campus, baked a lot of yummy food, and much more. It definitely felt like a day of embracing Do Something.

Chalk drawings + Do Something

Weekends are Wonderful Things

Last weekend was one of my busiest and most exciting since spring break, but in a lot of ways it was a pretty typical Olin weekend.

Saturday was Dewey's Read-A-Thon, the beginning of the NEWMAC baseball tournament, the last performance of Much Ado About Nothing at Olin, a Doctor Who episode with TARDIS, and my advisor Aaron's Midnight Math talk. On Sunday at church, we celebrated Earth Day, and I played handbells. Back at Olin, I had my second-to-last research meeting of the school year. More about each below the fold!

Outside the Bubble

Oliners often refer to the Olin Bubble. That can mean the campus or the community, but either way, it's something that separates us from the rest of the world. This isn't unique to Olin; I've heard students from other colleges/universities refer to bubbles at their schools in the same way. There are cultural and community advantages to the bubble, but it's also important to get outside of the bubble occasionally. A place as small as Olin can't provide everything, and simply by virtue of being an engineering college, Olin can feel homogeneous.

There are lots of ways I get out of the bubble. Here are six:

1. Church. I've gone to a Methodist church about a mile and a half from Olin almost every Sunday since Labor Day, and I joined this past week. It's a really small, friendly community, which has been awesome. I've gotten to know a lot of the adults at church, which I appreciate because during the rest of the week, the only adults I interact with much are professors. There are also a couple of freshmen from Wellesley who come, so I get to be with other students in a non-academic context.

2. Babson baseball. Okay, so this isn't really off campus. The baseball field is technically on Babson's land, not Olin's, but it's closer to Olin than it is to the rest of Babson. Nevertheless, very few Oliners even think about going to Babson games. Most days I'm in the stands with the players' parents and a few Babson students. I love watching the games, and it's a way to be in a very non-Olin environment without having to leave campus.

3. Reading the News. This sounds silly, since it's not actually going anywhere at all. But the Olin Bubble can, if you're not careful, extend to awareness of the outside world. There are a lot of Oliners who do read the news online, but there are also a lot who don't. I like knowing what's going on, and I don't think it makes sense to be at Olin -- a school that puts so much emphasis on engineering in context -- and not be aware of what's happening outside.

(three more below the fold)

For Honor!

As of last night, Olin has a new Honor Code.

About a year ago, the student body voted to put a sunset clause on the Honor Code, largely because a lot of people felt disconnected from the code. So this year, we elected an Honor Code Revew/Rewrite Committee (HCRC). They held a lot of meetings throughout the year, starting with ideation and comments on the old Honor Code, and then they went through a lot of drafts and got comments on those drafts. At one point the committee taped copies of the old Honor Code and the proposed Honor Code to the door of every single room in both dorms -- and then sent a meeting request to the entire school to discuss the draft.

Last night's Town Hall Meeting was the result of all of that work. In order to vote, we needed quorum -- at least half of the student body. We ended up with about 205 of the 325-ish students living on campus. After two hours of presentations, discussions, and voting, we approved the new Core Values and removed the sunset clause.

The new Core Values are below the fold:

Beavers Baseball

I'm from a baseball family. My father umpires high school and college ball, and I've been watching baseball on tv and in person for as long as I can remember (I definitely remember games in the Houston Astrodome). So when I found out that Babson has a baseball team and that the field is closer to Olin's campus than it is to the rest of Babson, I was very excited. And yesterday was opening day!

The game was at Babson's field, but Worcester Polytechnic (WPI) was the home team, which made the scoreboard a little confusing. The scoreboard lists "Visitor" and "Babson," but yesterday the "Visitor" score was Babson's and the "Babson" score was WPI. And Babson won, 19-6!

The Visitor score is actually Babson's. Hooray Beavers!

Reasons I love Math

1. Different subfields connect to each other in awesome ways. I'm doing graph theory research this semester with a group on campus. Most of my graph theory experience is in one subfield (edge coloring), and the group does work in another subfield (vertex labeling). Within my first couple of weeks with the group, we solved a vertex labeling problem by changing it to an edge coloring problem and solving that, which I thought was really cool.

2. It explains weird phenomena. This past Saturday night was the first ever Midnight Mathematicians at which the speaker was a professor. Midnight Math meets every other Saturday night (ish) at 11:59 pm, and we all dress classily, eat cheese, and listen to someone talk about math! This weekend, Professor John Geddes talked about work he's done on nonlinear dynamics of fluids, particularly related to blood flowing in microvessels. The blood sometimes does weird things, like change directions with no change in conditions, and the mathematics can actually explain this, which is so awesome. (I in no way mean to imply that math is only cool if it is useful. I've done and enjoyed too much model theory and logic to think that.)

3. And finally, it leads to exchanges like this:
(In Partial Differential Equations on Friday, talking about the wave equation on the half line. Aaron is the professor.)
Student: "That's why we can't make a semi-infinite guitar!"
Aaron: "That's why we wouldn't want to. The finiteness of the universe is why we can't."

Looking Ahead

Four weeks into this semester, we're already thinking about registration for fall classes.

This past week, all the students received a list of the classes that Olin is planning to offer in the fall along with descriptions of any new or highlighted courses. On Wednesday during lunch, the faculty held a course fair. Each type of class had a table -- Math, Science, AHS, E! (entrepreneurship), and each engineering. At least one faculty member teaching a class in that category was at each table to talk to students about the various courses and open research positions.

Between the course fair and Sunday night, all the students are highly encouraged to fill out a survey where we list up to five courses we'd like to take. The class schedule will be based on the survey results. The schedule will be released in a few weeks, we'll have some time to think about it, then we'll all need to get clearance from our advisors to register. That usually involves a short conversation talking about the classes we want/need to take.

After that, registration!

Snow-covered Olin

There was a blizzard last weekend! We got two or two and a half feet of snow. It was by far the most snow we've gotten this winter, and also the best snow for snowball fights!

The Student Activites Committe sponsored a snowball fight!

To get around, we walked through trenches that came up above my knees. Pictures below the fold!

Traditional

My second semester at Olin started two weeks ago. I have a pretty traditional schedule this semester, which is a little odd after the fall. I'm taking Real World Measurements, Modern Biology, Partial Differential Equations, and Physics of Waves. Despite how traditional most of my classes seem from the titles, they're still very Olin-ish, just in different ways than my classes last semester were. The classes have each met several times now, so I'm going to go through each one below the fold.

A Strange New Universe

"Out of nothing I have created a strange new universe."
-- János Bolyai

This past weekend was the MIT Mystery Hunt.

Mystery Hunt is a very large puzzle hunt. It's a little hard to describe puzzle hunts, but basically they're themed events in which teams compete by solving all kinds of puzzles. The answers to puzzles are always words or phrases (answers from this year's Hunt include DANNY OCEAN, GRAPHS, and AVENGERS), but how to arrive at that answer varies wildly. Most puzzles have two phases, a data-mining phase and an extraction phase. The data-mining phase could be answering the clues of a crossword or cryptic, identifying the missing letter on a bunch of road signs, looking at the rhyme scheme of a poem, doing some logic puzzles -- there are lots of possibilities. Extraction is getting from the data-mining to the answer. That could be indexing numbers into some words (taking the nth letter), looking at first letters of words, continuing a pattern, or looking at specially marked portions of a grid. A puzzle can be anything from a crossword with certain boxes marked so that those letters spell out the answer to a webpage full of pictures with no instructions at all.