The student organization I decided to look into this semester is Engineers Without Borders. The group works on the local and international level to solve issues involving problem solving. The international level is currently working in Gambia to provide irrigation and install a garden with fencing for a community. The local branch, which I am a part of, works on multiple local projects at once. The options for projects to join are installing bat houses, working on an irrigation system for an OSU garden, and fixing water collection cisterns for a nursery, which is the one I’m involved in. I went to this first meeting alone, but halfway through I noticed another student in the room was also in STEM. It was nice to see a familiar face in the room. It’s very beneficial to be a part of a student organization to build your network and meet people who are very different from you with the same interests. It’s also very important to join an organization that revolves around your planned major to see if it interests you.

The student leading the local branch of Engineers Without Borders seemed very professional and knowledgable about the group. I’ve only been to one meeting this far because I prioritize my school work over this organization, but I hope to learn to complete my day’s work ahead of time so that I can be a part of planning the project I’m involved in.

In the first local meeting, we split into three groups and begin research on how to best fix the problem we were working on. My group researched efficient water collection systems. This gave us information on the best ways to collect rainwater so we knew how to fix the problem with the cisterns at the nursery.

I found it very difficult to find a student organization I was interested in, even though I went to the student involvement fair and spent several hours at the event. It wasn’t as hard to find one I was interested in actually, but there were almost too many to choose from that I became overwhelmed. Which is a very good problem to have. I think there are so many organizations that I probably wouldn’t want or need to start a new club. But, if I was looking for something within my major that didn’t have a club tied to it I would have no problem trying to start a new club. Most likely, there would be other students wanting the same thing. The number of organizations at this school impacts student involvement in a powerful way. No matter your interest, you should be able to find people at this school that share it.

I really enjoy the projects that Engineers Without Borders works on, and I was planning on leaving the group earlier this week because I am changing my major to architecture, but I realized that architect often work alongside engineers to get projects done. So, it would actually be very beneficial for me to stay in the club to network with engineers.

Every week in CSE 1223 (Programming in Java) we have a project due to test what we learned in the chapter. This past week the project was a simple arithmetic program that output addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and the average of two numbers that the user inputs into the program. I made it about halfway through the project and found myself struggling with how to get the right output. I tried to figure the problem out on my own for a couple days and could not make progress. Luckily, my professor set up hours where undergraduate students, who did well in the class, are available to help current students out with code they are struggling with.

Throughout middle school and early high school I never experienced an academic problem like this to where I could not solve a problem using a textbook or my notes from a class. I knew college would definitely be a change in which I would need to seek help, but I was not planning on having to look for guidance this early.

Seeking help on this assignment was very easy since my professor made it so accessible to meet with undergraduate students that were very knowledgeable on the class I am taking. Last Thursday when I went to get help I was nervous I would not have time to actually understand the problem I was having because I had a physics lab about 30 minutes after I went to get help. But, the student that helped me knew what I was there for and at the time I went to get help there were two other students that I recognized from my class that were having the same issue as me. Having familiar faces helped a lot. When I told the undergraduate student what my problem was I almost expected him to just tell me what my issue was, but he helped me understand the concept I was missing by practically reteaching the material to me. This helped a ton because I understood right away what I needed to fix and I would be able to get past this problem in the future if it came up again.

Being able to get help has been a big problem for me in my middle school and early high school years. I felt that getting help meant I was not as intelligent as I thought I was and held myself up to be. But, as I moved through my last two years of high school I found out you cannot do everything by yourself and it is perfectly acceptable and even encouraged to work with teachers and other students to improve your learning and make you a better student. I’m glad I was able to understand that before I got to college. There is no way I’d be able to get through these first couple weeks of college without asking a classmate, friend or my roommate to explain a problem or help me understand a concept I am missing.