Posts

As an engineering undeclared major, one thing that attracted my interest from the beginning was aerospace engineering. When I saw that there was a STEM seminar titled “Astronomy Colloquium – Determination of the Evolutionary States of Red Giant Stars,” it captured my eye. I knew that aerospace interested me and was closely related to space and astronomy. My main other seminar option was on Biomedical Engineering, but I hardly understood the title of it. Hoping to learn something I understood, I thought I would attend the astronomy seminar.

Soon into the lecture, I realized that I understood nothing of what the presenter was talking about. He had a French accent because he is from Paris, talked quickly, and flew threw material I couldn’t comprehend. The guy clearly knew his stuff and my rudimentary understanding of astronomy was insufficient. I knew a little bit about aerospace engineering, but this was astrophysics, and I was completely lost.

Thankfully, however, I was able to pick up on a few things. There was one older man (likely a professor) and one grad student who knew what was going on and asked questions when they were confused. Through those, I could glean a little bit of information. I learned that Red Giants have a clumping phase in their life cycle in which the helium core has a shell-like area around it. By analyzing recurring patterns in seismic spikes in a star, scientists were able to tell which stage it was in. Past this, I am clueless about how the seismic data is found or what all the charts and experimental procedures meant.

Regardless of my confusion, I think attending the seminar was still worth my time. Though there were only a few graduate students and a lot of other people in the scholar’s program, I got a feel for what graduate research looks like. The presenter clearly went far in-depth into his studies, creating new methods and analyses never presented before. I also learned how specialized graduate school can be. Graduate students tend to learn one subject extremely well. He has spent countless hours analyzing trends in the seismology of a single type of star, the red giant. The fact that this work is so specific and focused really surprised me.

Personally, though I haven’t eliminated the option of graduate school or research, I feel as though I would want more general knowledge. As an engineer, I don’t want to be able to solve only one problem, but I want to be able to apply knowledge from a variety of topics to come up with a unique solution. Or, I would like my work to be applicable to more than one area. For example, some of the trends found in the star data were found by machine learning. I would much rather create software that can be trained than to use the software to learn about stars. Ultimately, this confirms engineering is a good fit for me. I know I want to create solutions more than I want to find answers.

Though I don’t think my visit to the seminar was useless, I feel as though I needed further education to be active in this community. It wasn’t a great chance for me to network because I knew so little about the topic, but I think it could be a good networking opportunity later in my education. I feel like I should be able to ask an intelligent question before a group would ever want me to join their research team. I have a lot to learn but hope to learn it quickly so that I can get further experience in the real world working and discovering. I’m sure I’ll be back at a seminar or two in just a handful of years!

A new environment is full of new thrills and challenges. Being fully launched into college at this point, I have found that school presents many difficult obstacles.

In high school, I was rarely challenged. I took almost every AP class and got straight A’s, making me the valedictorian of my class. Here, things are different in a humbling way. I always knew that I didn’t know everything, yet in college, I get to experience just that. OSU is filled with bright students and fittingly implements challenging course work. A school simply cannot have the best engineering program in the state without rigorous course work. Hence, I have certainly NOT known everything here.

One thing I was told countless times as I came to college is that I couldn’t expect to get 100% on every assignment. That has certainly been the case. I haven’t done terribly on anything yet, but I don’t always get the grade I want. Hence, at college, I am in the process of learning to ask for help. Ohio State has so many resources available in every situation. In this, I must learn to seek academic help. This is a new scene for me, but if I want to achieve my full success, I know I must be humble enough to seek assistance when I struggle.

Alex and I at MSLC getting help with difficult math homework before heading to the engineering career fair.

Over these first few weeks, I have attended several office hours, emailed my TAs, and now gone to MSLC. I think each has been helpful for my success thus far and I intend to attend as much as possible in the future.

My first office hours experience was with my Math 1172 TA John Hynes. He helped me prepare for a quiz and the upcoming midterm. My first quiz wasn’t quite perfect. I had trouble accepting this, so I decided to put in more practice. This pushed me to reach for help in a very foreign way compared to my past experiences. Additionally, this was my first college midterm and I was determined to do my best. Thankfully, with the help and extra practice, I did phenomenal on that midterm. Office hours served the purpose they are created for, but strangely, I noticed it was almost empty.

Despite constantly hearing people struggle in Math 1172, the office hours session was nearly barren. I asked John how often he had people come in for help. I was surprised to hear that only a handful of students come to each one. I expected around 10 or 12 at each session!

My experience attending MSLC was similar. MSLC is the Math Stat Learning Center where they offer tutors for each math class every day of the week for free. Strangely, very few people were there once again! I suppose timing is important and everyone has a busy schedule, but certainly more people (including myself) should be taking advantage of this resource. A lady there helped me prove some problems with limits that I was having trouble tackling.

Overall, my college experience has been filled with the need for more academic support than I ever needed in the past. Thankfully, I have found that there are plenty of resources here at The Ohio State University that will allow me to succeed. My next step is to be active about seeking out help and growing to understand I can’t always score a perfect.

Jacob, Alex, and Aidan (me) after a Big Data Analytics Association meeting

As I start to explore campus, I am finding countless clubs that catch my eye. Buckeye Space Launch Initiative, Design Build Fly, Big Data Analytics Association, Maker Club, Hack OHI/O are just a few of my engineering-related interests. Still, my interest to find a service organization leads me towards STEM Outreach and FIRST Robotics at Ohio State. Additionally, my personal passion to be involved in a quality Christian church leads me towards religious organizations such as Cru. I have already jumped into many of these activities, but I know I cannot possibly have time for all of them! It’s hard to choose just a few organizations from so many interesting ones, but my main selections will likely be Design Build Fly, Big Data Analytics, STEM Outreach, and Cru. I think it is likely that I still attend occasional events at the others when I have a chunk of time free in my schedule, but many of these clubs conflict with each other.

One organization I would like to highlight is Cru. Cru is a Christian organization on campus who seeks to provide a ministry for college students and service for others. I have now attended RealLife Cru 4 times, their small groups 3 times, and their Freshman Leadership Team program 1 time.

RealLife is Cru’s main church service, located in the Newport Music Hall on Sundays at 7 pm. This event is a traditional church service in a modern atmosphere with phenomenal testimonies. Each service starts with worship, includes a highlighted partnering organization, presents a sermon, revolves around an incredible testimony, and closes with more worship. Cru’s service is called RealLife for its unique touch of weekly testimonies. One student will describe their story of how God has worked in his/her life and provided him/her hope through dark times and conclude with “I’m [John Smith], and this is my Real Life story.” This aspect of the service caught my attention immediately with deeply emotional and powerful stories. People relay their tough walk through life, including serious struggles with rape, suicidal thoughts, and alcohol abuse, but proclaim how God gave them hope and refocused their lives. I’ve been inspired by these stories and intend to keep returning for such wonderful stories.

Another great event Cru holds is its small groups. For people who want to get more involved, meet people, and get into God’s word in a discussion setting, Cru has groups that meet in dorms in a fun group setting. My small group is made up of students who live in Houston and Houck dorms. We have about 4 upperclassmen men and women who all help organize the group of around 30. Each week we meet as a whole group of guys and girls, and then split off into smaller, gender organized groups for a more in-depth study. I’ve enjoyed this as a great chance to meet people who have similar values to me and I know can support me. The leaders who run this small group are also very encouraging and excellent role models. This gives me a great resource to ask for advice about social situations that I can’t ask about elsewhere. Overall, the small group setting has been a great, on-campus family thus far.

Lastly, is Cru’s Freshman Leadership Team (FLT). This is a program Cru set up to allow freshmen to come and meet each other while learning how to get more involved with the church. Although there has only been one event so far, the first was a blast. FLT had a remarkable turnout and gave me another opportunity to meet like-minded individuals. I’m excited to see how this program progresses throughout the year!

Although there are many organizations I am getting involved in, I chose to write about Cru because of how fast it got started. Most clubs have only had one or two events so far, but I’ve been to 8 Cru events. Cru has been very well organized and is a club I’m ecstatic to be a part of. I also cannot wait to see how each of my other clubs turns out and look forward to being as involved as possible.