That Sea that is Red

This is the first semester of my junior year, which is infamously the most difficult semester in the ME curriculum. I have friends who are seniors who laughed at my current semester status, saying they would "see me next year." Traditionally it is the juniors who stay up late doing homework, get up early to study for that fluid dynamics test, and log countless hours in the REDC computer labs running simulations and trying to get Pro-E and MathCad to cooperate so they can make a solid model of a random shape or solve that tenth order differential equation.

Coming into the semester I was afraid...very afraid. But after the first week, I was relieved. In previous semesters I had teachers who immediately assigned homework problems due within the first few classes and quizzes already on the schedule for the following week. This semester, there was none of that. I didn't receive a single homework assignment the first week. None. I was told that I would be tested on the material covered in my pre-requisite courses, but those turned out to be easy. I had decided that the stories my older friends had told me about this year were untrue.

False. The stories were true. And I didn't even realize what hit me. It wasn't a slow, steady build up to tons of work at all. It was the first three weeks being easy peasy, and the fourth being ABSOLUTE CHAOS. Here's how it went:

Monday: Computer aided engineering class homework assignment number 1 was due. I graphed some pretty things on an excel spreadsheet. It was fun. Then there was a fluids quiz...one that should have involved more studying than actually happened. I miraculously pulled off a 9/10 on this one. Whooooo!

Tuesday: Machine dynamics homework assignment due. This assignment contained one problem. The solution to said problem took up two entire pages of engineering paper. I think somebody needs to have a talk with that professor about saving trees.

Wednesday: Fluids homework due. Yes, this is the same class I just got quizzed on. There were about 8 problems in this assignment...and our substitute on Monday barely spoke english. After finding out that half of the problems required that I knew what he said, finishing that assignment took longer than planned.

Thursday: Machine dynamics partner project due. Not a fan of partner projects, especially those in which you haven't met your partner before the day before the assignment is due. That was a fun one. Oh, and the same teacher who assigned the due date of the project gave us a test on this day. Wonderful. Studying didn't happen because I was working on everything else that was due that week. Luckily this teacher lets us re-take the problems we missed if the score was below a 7/10 for each of three problems. I might have to re-do all three problems next week. With any luck, I will only be re-taking one or two.

Friday: Something was due in every single class. I turned in a revised resume and a cover letter for my english class first thing in the morning. Measurements and instrumentation class had a homework set due...that one was an easy assignment (only took 1.5 hours!). Fluids class, which by this point in the week has already been a huge pain in my butt, had a test. And I handed in my pretty solid-model of a 9-V battery for my CAE class.

Insanity in a nutshell. So if I don't blog for awhile, don't worry, I didn't die. I just am probably cooped up in that shiny building that houses all the poor souls of the Penn State Behrend engineering department, that C that they call RED.