Testing the waters

When I was a wee lass, my family used to frequent the Jersey shore. Thus, it came to be that I would learn to swim before riding a bike. Learning to swim wasn't without complications. Luckily, my parents cared about my well-being and did their best to preserve my life by outfitting me with a ridiculous orange contraption that was little more than an inner tube sewn into a nylon vest. In the early days of my oceanic swimming, I was pulled down by the undertow gasping for air and unable to fight my way out. Luckily, the obnoxious inner tube lent me some buoyancy and quite possibly saved my life on more than a few occasions.

This is my 2nd semester taking trigonometry. After I keenly decided to go back to school for MechE last summer, I knew I was going to need to brush up on my math skills. The Fall 2008 semester marked 10 years since my last college mathematics class. Since I wasn't enrolled at a 4-year college yet, I trekked down to my local community college to sign up for what would be the 1st of many super awesome math classes(can't you just feel the sarcasm?).

Judging from my transcript, I was approved for trig, which bypassed the need to take the 2 lower level classes, Elementary and Intermediate Algebra. This would've been fine if say, I had taken algebra a year ago or so. I was a bit concerned about how I would fare, but forged ahead with determination.

Luckily, I landed the best math teacher(aside from my pops) that I've ever had. Yet even with his teaching and a coherent book, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed. I was struggling to remember basic algebra rules which hindered my understanding of the new material. At the same time, I was reading, "What Color is Your Parachute?" and according to that book I had the skillset to be a photographer or novelist. It was like I was playing Monopoly and got dealt a community chest card that read, "You have not passed math and you will proceed to study liberal arts."

It was at this point, shortly after the 1st test of the semester that I lost my previously strong determination to study math and just plain ol' gave up. It was as if I was a 5 year old all over again trying to fight the wrath of the ocean, my stubby legs flailing about helplessly. I was convinced that I would sincerely be happier as a journalism major.

And I stayed somewhat convinced of this fact until a certain someone named Jennifer planted a small seed in the desert garden of my engineering dreams. She encouraged me to actually talk to real live engineers and the faculty advisor at the college before I let assumptions close the door on engineering. I realized a few very important lessons in the process:

1. It's best to directly ask questions of people who are actually working in the field you want to go into, not the people who switched from a MechE major or your business major friends(no offense!).

2. Speaking to an engineering faculty advisor informed me of the exact classes I would have to take and realistic workloads. The best thing I took away from this experience was that for an engineering major it is particularly crucial to study at least 1-2 hours for every hour spent in class per week. Therefore, a 5 credit hour class should warrant about 5-10 hours a week in study time outside of class.

So here I am again; another semester gone by but not without some valuable lessons learned. This time instead of just jumping in the water, I'm armed with my swanky orange innertube of realistic expectations, support, and additional mathematic knowledge to take on the worst trigonometric undertow the ocean of college can sock me with.