The Problem of Grades

In my post on feedback, I mentioned that there's a complicated conversation around grades at Olin. We talk a lot about intrinsic motivation and so want to minimize focus on single number or letter, and as a community we tend to favor detailed feedback over just giving a grade. But in almost all classes, professors do still have to give out grades at the end.

What To Take Second Semester of First Year

This is a bit of a strange post to do now, but I've been thinking about it a fair bit, and this is also a question that came up at the Post-Graduate Planning panel at Family Weekend. What classes should an Oliner take during the second semester of their first year to best prepare them for summer internships and later Olin classes?

There are just two requirements that semester, Products and Markets and Linearity I, which leaves most people with only eight credits already scheduled. For the next couple of years Olin will also be running Quantitative Engineering Analysis (QEA), which will cover the Linearity requirement and take up eight credits, so the students in that class would only need to take one more class to get to the standard sixteen credits.

Either way, that leaves at least one class to be filled, and for most majors it isn't convenient to start on major requirements in the spring. So here are some suggestions for what students should take.

Feedback and the Test Tube

One of the key features of Olin is its experimental status. Innovation in engineering education is a cornerstone of Olin. That means constantly identifying what could be better and attempting to improve it. Part of the way that we do that is through feedback.

Reflections on SCOPE: My SCOPE Experience

Several people have asked me about how I think SCOPE went for my team, and this is my attempt to answer that question.

The Changing Composition of the School

The fastest growing majors at Olin are actually not majors in their own right but rather are concentrations within the Engineering major. Engineering with Computing (E:C) has grown an incredible amount just between my class and the current sophomores, and Engineering with Robotics has also grown. E:Robo became more popular starting with my class or the class above us because it became an official concentration instead of a self-design, and it has stayed popular.

Note that these are both related to software. Software Design has become an increasingly popular class for people to take as first years or sophomores; it often has a wait list in the spring with multiple sections offered, and there's now a section in the fall as well. As more people take SoftDes, the popularity kind of reinforces itself; Oliners who have taken the class tell other students that it's a good and useful class, and so more people take it. Post Graduate Planning is also reinforcing the class's popularity by encouraging everyone to learn to code and telling people it's easier to get jobs if you know how to code.

Religion, Diversity, Student Government

I write a lot of happy things about Olin. When I write negative things, it tends to be in course reflections, and the negatives are usually accompanied by some positives.

But on Monday night, the student government voted down an amendment that would have (in its final form) required that the student government consider the calendar of religious observances important to the current student body before scheduling an event meant for the entire study body.

Reflections on SCOPE: Corporate Sponsorship

Other than our presentations at Boston Scientific and SCOPE Summit, SCOPE is over. We turned in our report and all our other deliverables on Friday. I was planning on writing one reflection on SCOPE, but my thoughts on sponsors, NDAs, etc. ended up longer than I expected, so there will be multiple SCOPE reflection posts. Here are my thoughts on corporate sponsorship.

Reflections on Second Semester Senior Year Activities

Here are some thoughts on the activities I was involved in during my last semester at Olin. It was a pretty decent culmination of the things I've been involved with over my four years here!

Reflections on Second Semester Senior Year Courses

I took Sustainable Design, SCOPE, Numerical Methods, and graph theory research this semester. I'll talk about SCOPE separately, but here are some thoughts on the others.