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!