Did I mention to you that I was at a boarding school from 8th to 10th grade? So at that boarding school I met this amazing Physics teacher who encouraged me to appreciate physics, he used to call me 'Archimedes' since I was the only kid in the class who was able to successfully understand Archimedes principle in eight grade.
Not only was he my physics teacher, but also our lunch head who used to seat at our lunch table to monitor our behavior and making sure that everything was going smoothly. I used to seat right next to him, and we used to talk a lot about physics. I used to ask him question and he used to shoot out answers as if he had engulfed the physics encyclopedia along with Google's algorithm to search answer for him instantly. Sometimes the question used to be about fighter jets, sometimes about oil floating on water.
Until I asked my teacher the ultimate question, I didn't knew why Einstein was so famous. All I knew was that Einstein was probably a really smart guy because his name was used a synonym for genius. Oh, one other thing I knew about Einstein was E=MC^2, though I didn't understand what the formula was trying to convey.
One fine afternoon at lunch, I asked my physics teacher about Einstein. I demanded to be read all the articles about Einstein from his 'encyclopedia.' To answer my question it took him almost rest of the year. Everyday he used to come up with new stories about Einstein. The most interesting thing that we talked about was Relativity. I was awestruck by the fact that if we traveled fast enough, in this case close to speed of light then we can time travel into the future.
That question about Einstein made me interested in Physics and thats the reason I am a Physics major. Though now I might be thinking of changing to Electrical Engineering, the inspiration from the Einstein question was enough to help appreciate physics, and get 5s on my AP exams
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Trivial initiatives do matter
This past week we were given a group project in the writing class. The project was to form a research question to answer which we would have to do observation of a public activity. To complete the project we had to dedicate significant amount of time outside the class as a group.
No one in the group was ready to bring up the discussion about the time to meet up, so I took the initiative to bring that up. Since we are in college unlike high school our schedule might not coincide, so I started by asking for the best day of the week when they were free. Finally we decided to meet on a Saturday afternoon. It might seem that taking initiative to decide the time to meet is trivial, it really isnt. If I had not taken the initiative to decide the time of meeting during the class, then at the end we would had to decide the time hastily. And in hastiness many of us would had agreed to a random time only to realize later that we had something else planned for that time.
Another initiative that I took while working on the same project was to introduce the group to google docs. Google docs is a useful tool that can be used to create documents with great collaboration without taking distance into consideration. I took the initiative to explain them that while everyone can work on the same document from their laptops. It came out to be very useful, because instead of each of us writing our own version and then later on collaborating in to one version we were able to work on a single version from start to end. We were able to save precious man hours and at the time we were able to produce better output.
Someone else in my place would had ignored to take the initiative to introduce the group to google docs, because of the explanation that was involved. But I was courageous enough to take the initiative.
No one in the group was ready to bring up the discussion about the time to meet up, so I took the initiative to bring that up. Since we are in college unlike high school our schedule might not coincide, so I started by asking for the best day of the week when they were free. Finally we decided to meet on a Saturday afternoon. It might seem that taking initiative to decide the time to meet is trivial, it really isnt. If I had not taken the initiative to decide the time of meeting during the class, then at the end we would had to decide the time hastily. And in hastiness many of us would had agreed to a random time only to realize later that we had something else planned for that time.
Another initiative that I took while working on the same project was to introduce the group to google docs. Google docs is a useful tool that can be used to create documents with great collaboration without taking distance into consideration. I took the initiative to explain them that while everyone can work on the same document from their laptops. It came out to be very useful, because instead of each of us writing our own version and then later on collaborating in to one version we were able to work on a single version from start to end. We were able to save precious man hours and at the time we were able to produce better output.
Someone else in my place would had ignored to take the initiative to introduce the group to google docs, because of the explanation that was involved. But I was courageous enough to take the initiative.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
My iEngineering Ambition
I was really excited when I got accepted to University of Illinois after being rejected to some of the other best engineering school. I had assumed that I was going to get rejected even from University of Illinois, but it didnt happen. After I got accepted to U of I, I was invited to apply for iEFX. I was really excited about that too.
Even though right now its been just two weeks since the iEFX started, I am sure that it is going to have big impact on my college career. I have pinned down three main 'abilities' that I want to learn through out the course and the way I would like to achieve them.
Firstly I would like to learn how to weld. When I was in 8th grade I wanted to motorize my bike, but due to inability to weld I wasnt able to accomplish my goal. Now I want to learn how to weld and rework on the old project. I would love to take a class on metal workshop, but I dont that we have any, so another way that I can learn this is through iTeam. I can convince my team members and we can set up a workshop for learning to weld.
Another thing I want to learn is to learn Matlab. Its the one of the most important software that is required for data analysis and research. Again this can be achieved in the same way as the one before. In this I can actually go to other seminars that they have in the college of engineering, and I can also take CS 101 to learn about it.
Finally the third thing I want to do is to socialize with people from different background. This is really important to gain more knowledge because there is always something to learn from everyone. I can achieve this by taking classes in different colleges and I can also attend social events.
When I look at the things that I want to learn this semester I think that they will make me more capable. It will contribute to make me a more capable engineer who has the missing basics.
Even though right now its been just two weeks since the iEFX started, I am sure that it is going to have big impact on my college career. I have pinned down three main 'abilities' that I want to learn through out the course and the way I would like to achieve them.
Firstly I would like to learn how to weld. When I was in 8th grade I wanted to motorize my bike, but due to inability to weld I wasnt able to accomplish my goal. Now I want to learn how to weld and rework on the old project. I would love to take a class on metal workshop, but I dont that we have any, so another way that I can learn this is through iTeam. I can convince my team members and we can set up a workshop for learning to weld.
Another thing I want to learn is to learn Matlab. Its the one of the most important software that is required for data analysis and research. Again this can be achieved in the same way as the one before. In this I can actually go to other seminars that they have in the college of engineering, and I can also take CS 101 to learn about it.
Finally the third thing I want to do is to socialize with people from different background. This is really important to gain more knowledge because there is always something to learn from everyone. I can achieve this by taking classes in different colleges and I can also attend social events.
When I look at the things that I want to learn this semester I think that they will make me more capable. It will contribute to make me a more capable engineer who has the missing basics.
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