Sometimes I look back and wonder where the year went. I mean it’s not like I blinked and it was over entirely, but it sure does go fast. The year started alright, I already had research established and knew I was going to TA for the Fundamentals of Engineering for Honors program again, so I looked forward to that right from the start. The classes autumn semester were weird, in a way, because as an engineer, none of my classes were engineering based. They were all more qualitative than the math-intensive engineering courses I expected to have as a junior.
The Eminence Retreat I attended was one of the highlights of my autumn semester. When I was a first year it was one of my favorite experiences that I had, especially since I got to know so many people and have a fun weekend away from the campus. This year I wanted to help facilitate that retreat to help craft that memory for the first-years, and again it was a great experience and weekend that I will remember for a long time.
Moving into this spring semester, I finally got to some engineering-intensive courses, or at least ones that involved more mathematics. They haven’t been easy, but I think I’ve learned some interesting information that may be useful in my future work. This spring semester has also helped me learn about my philosophy toward academics. Since there has been so much homework all of the time, I figured out that I like getting things done as early as possible so I don’t have to think about the stuff later on. Also, I learned I have a sort-of reverse exponential curve toward stress where I get really stressed about things like exams really early on, but then the stress decays over time until I am fairly confident and not stressed as much when the event or exam actually occurs.
In terms of future plans and goals, this summer, I am pursuing a research internship with the National Institutes of Health. I am not fully sure what project I will be working on, but believe this experience will help me grow as a medical researcher and will provide me with more research experiences to think about when deciding on future research projects. Next year I’ll be applying and interviewing for medical school. I would love to go to Ohio State but we’ll see where I get accepted and what makes financial sense. Then I plan on taking it easy after that, since it’s been a tough three years and I don’t want to pull my hair out the last semester of college.