Ok, updates:

Finished the Enginering Design Robot competition. I won't go into detail on what happened in the team preparation of our robot. Suffice it to say that I've never been in a situtation like that, ie had something so far from being finished by the time the competition rolled around. I just hope that Senior Design next semester doesn't turn out the same way....

Visited three grad schools in California last week. My expectations of them were changed after going there. Caltech is a friendly environment, where the professors seem to really know the students on a personal level and some neat research is happening. It is, however, so small (smaller than my high school) that I don't if I could stand seeing the same people over and over again for however many years I'd be there. Their courseload is quite intense, so the students are very focused. But they offer some neat classes like one where you work directly with JPL scientists in a NASA mission-like project. That means you work on all stages of a launch. It's surely an intense course, but definitely a neat one. Also, since it's so small, the opportunity for interdisciplinary work increases by a huge amount.

Berkeley is a more laid-back environment with a less intense courseload, but is a large public school, which is appealing to me. Their are definitely some interesting students there, but I think the crazy ones are mainly in the undergrad crowd, and the mech e grad students seem to be away from that. The school is easily over half asian. Close to San Francisco, but far enough away that one wouldnt get distracted from studies too easily. Also, I ran into Robert Liao there-what are the chances!

Stanford, who I thought was going to be my favorite, turned out to be a bit different than I was expecting. At least the students I spoke with, were not the type of people I would expect to see in an engineering lab or who I would hang out with. Think frat boy. Maybe I just ran into the wrong people. Also neat research though and a gorgeous campus.

After living in Munich, using public transportation in LA and San Francisco was disappointing. There are literally only 5 or 6 stops on the BART in the actual city of San Francisco. The rest of the time you have to figure out the bus system or have a car (parking is impossible). And there wasn't too much interesting stuff to do there. In Munich, there are castles, pretty buildings, neat museums, huge parks, etc. In San Francisco, there are tons of delicious restaurants and cultural activities (art, concerts) but nothing really interesting to do if you're going there just because.

Here's a link of Allen Scholars stuff. Note how he is going to provide funding to study abroad for a year after graduation.............why can't that be implemented now!!! Maybe I should delay my graduation until that funding comes into effect :) http://osu.okstate.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=822&Itemid=1

Since my last post, I finished up my study abroad semester in Munich. The experience was fantastic, opening my eyes to new things culturally and academically. Classes were tougher than I was expecting since they don't actually teach you anything in class (not kidding! going to class doesn't actually contribute to your knowledge of the material) you literally have to learn everything on your own (no TA office hours and no textbooks) and the non-Europeans (only me.....) have to guess what type of questions they ask on the final exams. Answer: Nothing remotely like what we are tested on in the States.

So, while I was exposed to new cultural experiences (actually Germany and the US are not really all that different. most of our foods are exactly the same for crying out loud), most new perspectives of mine were gained from the academic life. But the lessons I faced made me more relatable to others, showed me not to be overconfident or not full prepared going into a new situation, and were overall, very humbling.

The day after my last final, I rushed back to Stillwater and drove 10 hours to Albuquerque for an internship at what has to be one of the coolest places to work. Though my internship time was severly shortened due to my semester abroad, it was worth it to get to see Sandia.They are conducting research in every possible topic you can imagine, and since moving around within the company is common, it would be impossible to ever get bored there. Especially when your group is working on something as neat as explosives :) Who else gets paid to play with stuff like that? And our technology is being used right now by the military and law enforcement. Pretty cool stuff.

Albuquerque itself is a neat city. The Southwest flair is neat: how can you not love having chile on everything? (McDonlads included) It is rather strange though, that it has one of the highest percentage of PhD residents there, and on the flip side experiences a lof of poverty and high crime.  

Now I'm back at OSU, chugging through my 5 MAE classes, 2 research projects, orchestra, FE studying, 2 finals during the semester and attempting to fit sleep and eating in there somewhere. Yeah for Fall Break!

Here's a video I highly recommend watching (got it from Dominik's blog) "Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving talk, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals."

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