Show me what I'm Looking For

Now that school is over I feel like I have so much time! I just don't know what to do with it. Actually, I have a lot of things I should be doing but am giving myself two weeks to 'rest' before starting. There's this song by Carolina Liars called "Show Me What I'm Looking For" and it would play over and over again these past few months. Anyway, I thought it was fitting for me since I felt about as lost and confused as the writer of the song. Now whenever I hear this song I will probably think back to my first semester back in school. Maybe by the time I finish I can build up a playlist capturing all the emotions that I experienced. Hm, I'll write that down.

Rambling Reflections

At last, the semester has ended. The last week of finals was grueling, frustrating, physically draining and was excruciating for me. I took the whole week off from work thinking that I would have plenty of time to prepare for my 3 classes, but I completely underestimated how much work would be required. I tend to become overly anxious when I have to study/take tests so finals weeks was that magnified 20 times. To prepare for my Physics final, I had printed out perhaps close to a hundred pages of questions I found online, and in the end I was not able to complete all the questions as I had hoped. My physics test was on Wed, while my Calc II test was the horrific last day of the week, Friday. Since I was performing the worst in Physics, I focused the whole weekend and half the week on the class driving myself, my husband, and my guinea pig crazy. I walked out of the final Wednesday not feeling like it went well. My professor is not really good at well…teaching. His tests are often filled with grammatical errors, he has incorrect diagrams for the problems and he’s even rounded wrong for the correct answer choices in the past as well as given us the wrong constants for G = 6.7*10^-11. So, I often tell my husband that it’s a crapshoot on how well one does on his ridiculous tests. The really sad thing is that if I do by a miracle pass his class, I inadvertently signed up for his Physics II class in the fall. Just the thought of enduring his class for another semester, for a total of one year is just depressing, but I can dwell on that if and when the time comes. Between Wed afternoon and Thursday evening, I studied close to 8 hours for my math final doing like was suggested by some of you of going through old problems, old tests, etc. It seemed to work pretty well and I felt a little more confident in that class despite only receiving 4 hours of sleep the night before. I had no coffee that day either! Anyway, I have two of the three grades back and am now anxiously awaiting my physics grade. I know I am far from reaching my goal of completing my bachelor’s degree in engineering, but as Laura once quoted Confucius to me, “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. Well, this past semester right here is my one, single, magnificent step. And in this one tiny step, I have learned a multitude about myself and about others. Here are some things I thought of:

1. It is difficult: In my mind I knew how difficult this would be, especially for me, but for some reason at the same time I was thinking I should be able to grasp these concepts and be able to do these problems in a split second. And if I wasn’t able to, then I am not cut out for this. But apparently, a good majority of people who do this struggle through it (unless you’re some Einstein or MIT destined individual) and that took time for me to get used to, the always constantly struggling portion of it.

2. Utilize what you have :
1) Office hours: In my first round of college, I never went to a single one of my professor’s office hours. I don’t know what was wrong with me. This semester, I went to visit my professors during office hours to ask questions, receive clarifications regarding tests, homeworks, and grades. I also emailed them constantly.
2) Classmates: I didn’t do this, but I noticed that in my classes the students who collaborated with each other in regards to projects, homeworks, etc., had a leg up over loners like me who had to figure everything out slowly. I guess like they say, two brains are better than one!
3) Out of class textbooks: Like my post a few weeks ago on physics, I found it very helpful to have on hand out of class material in case you don’t understand something. For instance, in my calculus II class my teacher was teaching 1st and 2nd order differential equations using a packet that we had to access from online. Our textbook only touched on the subject for 2 pages, while the packet was cumbersome and hard to get through. So, I dug up my husband’s differential equations textbook (this is supposed to be a whole separate class I believe) and worked on problems in the beginning of the book. I believe that helped me tremendously.

3. Work through problems, many problems: Unlike my business classes in college, the classes this semester I found myself constantly working through problems over and over again as well as trying to find new ones to work through. I guess the thinking is that the more problems you do, the more you can get a feel for the subject. I guess that’s one of the biggest differences I’ve encountered for math/science classes vs. business/other classes. It’s difficult to really learn the material unless you just get into it.

4. You won’t know everything: Also unlike my prior college classes, I could read through a textbook and make pretty darn sure that I understood the concepts and process flows for how business entities are established, etc. But, what was probably the hardest for me to learn this semester is that it is ok to not be able to do all the math problems my professor assigned. I remember spending over 10 hours each week, especially towards the end of the semester and after a page of working a problem only to find it to be incorrect was incredibly frustrating. I sincerely thought for the longest time (and still do) that there was something wrong with my intellect. Imagine my surprise when my husband told me that very often it’s impossible to do all the problems correctly and still have time to do everything else for your classes.

5. All you have to do is beat the average: I always had the mentality that to perform well in a class, you had to not only know everything, but also have to perform well on the test and score as close to that 100% as possible. Of course, this is true, you can’t score a 30% and expect to get an A. I my class, mostly because he’s such a rotten teacher, the class averages for a test were around 20/45 or 30/60. As long as you’re above that average, you’ll score a B after he curves the test which is somewhat comforting. Well, I guess my point here is that I learned you don’t need to have the highest grade, or even the best grade as long as you are better than the average of the class.

6. Boys are immature. Freshmen boys are even more immature: After working for almost two years in a mostly professional environment, going back to school with fresh out of high school 18 year olds can make you feel like you’re in a circus. Since engineering is mostly men, I guess the disparity was compounded more by the fact that I was definitely more of a minority. It’s funny, when that professor from Cornell was telling me about going back to school for a 2nd B.S. he pointed out “well you know you’ll have to take some classes with 18 year olds and that’s not always that fun” but I never thought much of it until I was actually there. It’s just amazing the difference you see in the 4 years in college. The guys in my class couldn’t dress very well, didn’t smell great either, and had really weird habits that were beyond disgusting at times. This one guy that sat next to me in math (not for long) would vigorously scratch his head/hair, look under his fingernails for…stuff…and then proceed to stick his finger in his mouth to suck out the newly acquired ‘stuff’ in his fingernails. This other guy would spend the whole time in my math class popping his zits all over his neck, his face, etc. There’s more but I’m about to eat dinner soon so I don’t want to spoil my appetite.

7. People vs. You: After I told people when they asked me what degree I was pursuing and why, I’ve found that either people are completely supportive, or the absolute opposite, and they didn’t shy from showing the latter. I remember when I told my at the time manager (out of necessity, not desire) that I was going to go on a part time schedule to pursue another degree, he dryly responded, “What are you going to do with that? I really do not see a benefit for your pursuing of an engineering degree” and continued to make snide remarks in the weeks after such as, “Are you seriously going to go through with this?”. He also managed to deride the fact that I was now “poor” and “doing all that work for nothing”. Gotta love these enthusiastic people. I also remember receiving an email from my mother on the day of my SolidWorks midterm suggesting that I pursue Library Science instead as it is not as stressful. I guess my point in mentioning this is that no matter what you do, there are going to be people wanting you to fail or not believing you have what it takes and unless you know for certain why you want to do something, there’s a great chance you’ll succumb to their pessimistic outlook.

8. People For You: On the other hand, you have those who are blindly supportive and you wonder why. I mulled over this decision for almost two years, and in that period of time I seeked out advice from those who have been there. There was this professor at Cornell that was a principal investigator for one of the programs I was supporting at the time, and on a leapt of faith I emailed him after noticing that he had a B.A. in English, and after enrolling for a Ph.D in English he went back and got a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering. He then proceeded to receive his Master’s, and ultimately his Ph.D. The correspondences we had were extremely encouraging and beneficial, and I remember being so surprised that he had so much belief that I could do this, even though we’ve never met and only kept in touch through email and a couple times through the phone. Maybe through his own trials in achieving his dreams he has come to believe you can do anything if you set your mind to it. There are others, coworkers, friends, who have been a blessing in providing their support, but my sister and my husband rank up there for helping me muster just enough courage to take a leapt. And of course, having Laura as a sort of modern pen pal has been inspiring and she’s been such a pillar of support as we both wrestle with this dream. It important to filter out the negativity towards you from people who aren’t supportive and to focus on the ones who do believe in you.

9. Last but not least, have faith. Have faith in yourself, in the system and in God.

Falling Off the Tightrope

For nearly the past 8 weeks since I started my full time job, I've been precariously wobbling atop the tightrope of my college career trying to maintain some sense of balance. It's as if my work is giving me continually more and more balls to juggle as I'm shimmying across and this last week represented the point where juggling and balance were lost as I went careening downwards(thank god for safety nets).

In short, I'm going through an intense training program at work which involves learning massive amounts of information(both written, oral, and practical) in a short amount of time. My fellow co-workers and I are then required to pass a series of written and practical certification exams. The culmination or "final" if you will was held this past Monday which consisted of a 19 page two-part exam with mostly essay format questions. The second half of the exam consisted of information from 2-4 page reports I and my co-workers had written and presented on Friday of last week. It was clear much cramming needed to take place last weekend to prepare.

Although daunting, what scared me more was my trigonometry test coming up on Wednesday. Consequently, much cramming was needed in order to succeed on that test as we finished the chapter last week and hadn't yet applied the material.

Still both were totally doable in the grand scheme of things. That is, until my engine died on the way home from work Thursday night. Living in public transportation scarce LA, arranging a ride became top priority. Thankfully I have some exceedingly smart, resourceful, and hard-working friends without whose help I would not have been able to get to work or school this week.

Monday was my 6 hour written exam at work which left me glazed over and burnt out. I noticed that my brain seemed to be operating in "safe mode" thereafter. I was able to study some on Sunday and prioritized my time towards trig with subsequent study sessions during lunch breaks and all evening Monday and Tuesday. However, I noticed a trend that my brain was not able to remember anything new. Seriously. The information we covered the previous week in trig would not stick no matter how many breaks I took, matcha tea I drank, or herbal energy pills I popped. Not even a good night's sleep started things fresh.

By Wednesday I was frazzled, desperately trying to grasp math concepts during my work lunch break and fatigued. I went into my test that evening with a sense of impending doom but a positive effort to do my best and see what happened. I was actually surprised by the fist half of the test which in my opinion was pretty easy. The second half of the test slaughtered me. It was full of new concepts we learned that I truthfully had not absorbed. Without even getting the test back I know for a fact that I failed it.

I'm completely disappointed about that, no doubt. I left class Wednesday feeling stupid and directionless. Since I tend to be pretty hard on myself, I tried to take into consideration all the crap that went down in my life this past week from my car dying to the unique situation of having to study as much if not more for work at the moment as part of training. Granted, this training will pass eventually but it still upsets me that my time is being so torn from concentrating on my studies at the moment. If I didn't have such passion for this job I know for a fact that I wouldn't be able to handle the added stress.

What I'm taking away from this experience is the ill-effects of procrastination and how it will turn your hair prematurely white. I've learned that if you are attempting to undergo a stress-induced stroke brought on by holding down a job and going to school that you should take advantage of every valuable minute of every day. In fact, that's probably a good lesson for anyone. The weekends I was decompressing from work I could have been studying my work material and homework so I wouldn't have gone through system overload at the last minute. Carpe diem, students!

Am I a big enough nerd?

As I've been going through my math classes this year, I've started to ponder the question, "Am I a big enough nerd for this?"

Seriously. At first I was surprised to discover that I didn't loathe math as much as I thought I did. After I passed Intermediate Algebra with flying colors, I was feeling much more confident in my skills.

Now I'm 4 weeks away from finishing my Trigonometry class and I'm just about out of steam. I've taken up the hobby of slacking off on homework. Sure, I'm working full time now, but when I get home from work I could totally bust out the textbook and cruise through 30 problems. However, when I get home from work I kick off my shoes, grab a refreshing nonalcoholic beverage, and let my brain download the day's events.

All I can say is it was a hell of a lot easier to find time and initiative to study when I had all day to do as I pleased. Oh, to be financially independent and jobless!

So aside from work taking time out of my schedule, I've been giving a lot of thought to how much determination I have to actually follow through with an engineering degree. I feel like I should be geeking out on all things engineering related and eating general math problems for breakfast. Truth is, when I'm not in school, I rarely think about math. I think about making CD mixes, driving, working on my car, locations for 1 am photo shoots, and learning to play guitar again. I think about how much I love working outside and never doing the same thing twice.

Then I think about me as a future engineering student. I see me cursing at traffic as I commute to school and hauling boatloads of books. I see me being bored in class. I can imagine me turning down opportunities to go to shows or write blog entries in order to run my brain cells on a never ending treadmill of Calculus problems. I foresee the creative section of my brain shriveling up and dying as my camera collects dust on the shelf.

Then I try to look ahead to me as a mechanical engineer. I envision me sitting at a desk in a cubicle on a computer putzing away on CAD designing some I-beam. I envision me being super freaking bored and financially stable.

I'm not sure if these visions are completely fictional or the product of an imagination with no frame of reference about what actual engineers do all day. I have no problem sacrificing time or hobbies for something that will eventually pay off in terms of my ultimate happiness and hopefully as a positive contribution to society too. But at this age, I will be seriously pissed if I make the commitment to dump everything in my life except for school and I emerge as little more than an humanoid calculator given tasks to compute.

To put it in perspective, if someone told me that I would be technically challenged and creatively inspired shooting photography or pursuing music, I wouldn't hesitate to change my major. I'm just not convinced by the curriculum that I see at CSUN that a Journalism major is that challenging, or more importantly, even worth it. In fact, I would rather be an engineer any day than sit in a radio station newsroom again. For me, it seems like my constant debate: pursue a traditional degree and pretty much be guaranteed a good job or pursue a creative career and be in limbo financially but possibly be happier overall. Hmm...

Thoughts?