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.



-- Dynamics. This is a mechanical engineering requirement. It covers rigid-body dynamics and linear systems. It's offered every fall, and this year it's a large class. There are 40-45 students, mostly sophomores and juniors.

-- Transport Phenomena. This is also a mechanical engineering requirement, and it covers fluid dynamics and heat transfer. There are 15 or so of us in the class. This fall it's taught by a visiting professor, Shane Walker, who is here on the Argosy Fellowship from University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). This is the class about which I'm most excited; I've thought fluids were cool for years.

-- Bayesian Reasoning and Inference. This fulfills a probability and statistics requirement. The professor is Sanjoy, who taught my Waves class last semester. It's probably going to have the lightest out-of-class workload. I've taken frequentist stats before, so I'm excited to take Bayesian. This is a very popular class and is definitely my largest.

-- The Soviet Union: A Tragic Colossus. This class is at Wellesley and fulfills an AHS (Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences) requirement. I took Azerbaijani language classes in Baku this summer, and those credits are transferring, so my plan is that those language classes and this Soviet history class will form my AHS concentration.

-- Graph Theory Research. I'm back in the same research group this semester, and I'm excited to see what we can accomplish! We're submitting abstracts to present our work from last semester at the Joint Math Meetings in January.

-- NINJA for Linearity II and Discrete. Linearity II is vector calculus and differential equations, and most of the sophomores are taking it. Discrete is a required course for anyone majoring in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) or Engineering with a Concentration in Computing (E:C or E with C). My work for these will mostly involve office hours and grading, though I'll be in class some and might run tutorials for Linearity.

-- Art of Problem Solving TA. I'm a TA for Mathcounts/AMC 8 Basics this semester, and then I'm doing lots of substitute TAing. Mathcounts Basics is exciting because it's the first class I've TAed that I actually took when I was younger!

-- Languages. I'm taking the DELE and DALF, which are Spanish and French proficiency exams, near the end of the semester, so I'm preparing for this. I'm in the Por Supuesto co-curricular again this semester, which helps with the Spanish. I'm also working to improve my Azerbaijani and Portuguese.

-- Society of Women Engineers. I'm the Olin chapter's treasurer this year, and I'm going to the national conference in Baltimore in October.

-- Church/Olin Christian Fellowship. There's church on Sundays, and I'll go to college ministries activities at church and OCF evening events. I'm also taking an online Disciple I Bible Study class, and I'm now on a committee at church.