Olin talks a lot about having a project-based curriculum. This post looks at all the projects I did at Olin. I considered when I did the projects, what kind of class I did them in, how long they took, and how many people were involved.
Burn Brilliant
On the steps of the palace: four years at Olin College of Engineering, living an experiment in engineering education
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
After Olin
Starting this fall, I'll be at Columbia University, pursuing a PhD in the Applied Physics & Applied Math department. I'm in the applied math - atmospheric science track, and I'm really excited about this.
I've known for a long time that I was interested in fluid mechanics and thermal-fluid systems, and my mechanical engineering courses confirmed that these really were my areas of interest. I also found through my courses and projects that Olin that I loved math modeling, and so I started looking into any programs where I could do fluid modeling. For a while, that meant I was looking into lots of different departments, including math, applied math, mechE, chemE, and oceanic and atmospheric science. Through reading geophysical fluid dynamics papers and looking at NYU's Atmosphere-Ocean Science and Math program, I decided that the research I was most interested in was in the atmosphere/ocean space, but my top choices of programs were NYU and Columbia, the two where I would be in an applied math department. After visits to all the programs where I was accepted, I was most excited about and comfortable at Columbia.
I've known for a long time that I was interested in fluid mechanics and thermal-fluid systems, and my mechanical engineering courses confirmed that these really were my areas of interest. I also found through my courses and projects that Olin that I loved math modeling, and so I started looking into any programs where I could do fluid modeling. For a while, that meant I was looking into lots of different departments, including math, applied math, mechE, chemE, and oceanic and atmospheric science. Through reading geophysical fluid dynamics papers and looking at NYU's Atmosphere-Ocean Science and Math program, I decided that the research I was most interested in was in the atmosphere/ocean space, but my top choices of programs were NYU and Columbia, the two where I would be in an applied math department. After visits to all the programs where I was accepted, I was most excited about and comfortable at Columbia.
Sunday, August 7, 2016
A Few Serious and Not-So-Serious Things I Did as an Oliner
In four years at Olin, I did the following:
Saturday, August 6, 2016
Palace of Promise
Throughout junior and senior year of high school, Olin was my top choice largely because of its curriculum. I wanted to be doing engineering, not just learning about it, and I appreciated the focus on engineering starting and ending with people. It was the community that eventually led to my decision to go to Olin, but it was the curriculum and education model that initially attracted me.
Friday, August 5, 2016
Olin is its People
I chose to come to Olin over my other options largely because of the small community and particularly how strong the relationships between students and professors seemed. So, I wanted to take a post to focus on how those relationships ended up shaping my four years at Olin.
Left: with Professor Troxell. Center: with Rehana. Right: with Aaron. |
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Identity, Confidence, Community: My Olin Story in Five Graphs
It's been about a month since I graduated! I'll be writing some more general reflections, including one specifically about community, but I was inspired by a conversation with a friend to draw some graphs that I thought were interesting enough to share on their own.
There are five graphs: confidence as an engineer, confidence as a mathematician, identity as an engineer, identity as a mathematician, and sense of community.
The time axis is divided into semesters and summers. My first summer was spent on the Critical Language Azerbaijani program, my second was in Singapore doing chemical engineering research, and during my third summer I was at UCLA doing applied math research in the RIPS program. I was abroad at Budapest Semesters in Mathematics during my junior fall.
All the graphs are annotated, but the annotations are pretty small; click or zoom in to read them!
There are five graphs: confidence as an engineer, confidence as a mathematician, identity as an engineer, identity as a mathematician, and sense of community.
The time axis is divided into semesters and summers. My first summer was spent on the Critical Language Azerbaijani program, my second was in Singapore doing chemical engineering research, and during my third summer I was at UCLA doing applied math research in the RIPS program. I was abroad at Budapest Semesters in Mathematics during my junior fall.
All the graphs are annotated, but the annotations are pretty small; click or zoom in to read them!
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
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.
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