Ad Electrocutem
My first Tuesday/Thursday class at UH is Intro to Electrical and Computer Engineering. As the name may suggest, it is very introductory and thus far not at all technical in nature. The course is aimed at an audience of "first time in college" students who have no real world experience to speak of. I understand that the prof is forced to teach to the lowest common denominator, and it seems that most of the older students (because you're old at 23 like me) aren't bothered by it. Some of the topics we've covered so far have been professionalism, teamwork, successful study habits, and my favorite, how to email a professor. Students are now diligently completing the assignment of a Resume for tomorrow's homework. I'm thankful that mine has been updated recently enough that a few touches here and there were sufficient.
One of the ways that the prof attempts to help the less experienced students learn from the older ones - and vice versa - is to mix us up into random foursomes with whom we will perform many tasks throughout the semester. My group seems to fit the bill of a random sample, but I think we'll work well together. There is the "first time in college" 18-year-old girl who's very nice and who will eat nothing but fast food - not even Italian. Note that there are only four women in the class of eighty people, and there is another group which contains the other two. We've discussed group outings, but we've narrowed it down to nowhere with alcohol and nothing that isn't "all American" in nature. Another member of the group is a Peruvian immigrant with a taste for interesting music and whose quiet nature leads one to wonder what else he's hiding. There's the Mac enthusiast (is there any other kind?) who happens to be lucky enough to draw a salary from Apple - the dream job of any geek who's ever used a Mac - and with whom I have already become friends. He's going to teach me to play disc golf, and in turn I'll teach him how to think you're exceptionally talented at pool while only having mediocre skills at the game.
Our first assignment as a team was to ditch the old numbering system bestowed upon us (we were "10") and to assign ourselves a name. I liken this to picking a name for a band; everyone will have ideas and none of them will make sense. In reality, only two of us had ideas, and mine were all Latin phrases. I was on the verge of voting for Chris's "USS Ronald Reagan," a several-degrees-of-separation inside joke about the prof's hair, until I thought of and blurted out "Ad Electrocutem." It's Latinesque, but it's a non-word related to Electrical Engineering if only by its root. Seeing that the other two liked it, I voted for the name I had invented, but I admit that the other one had more pluck and a cuter story behind it.
So, both of my readers, when you wonder why I'm not blogging as often, it's because of all of the value-added activities I'm doing at school.
One of the ways that the prof attempts to help the less experienced students learn from the older ones - and vice versa - is to mix us up into random foursomes with whom we will perform many tasks throughout the semester. My group seems to fit the bill of a random sample, but I think we'll work well together. There is the "first time in college" 18-year-old girl who's very nice and who will eat nothing but fast food - not even Italian. Note that there are only four women in the class of eighty people, and there is another group which contains the other two. We've discussed group outings, but we've narrowed it down to nowhere with alcohol and nothing that isn't "all American" in nature. Another member of the group is a Peruvian immigrant with a taste for interesting music and whose quiet nature leads one to wonder what else he's hiding. There's the Mac enthusiast (is there any other kind?) who happens to be lucky enough to draw a salary from Apple - the dream job of any geek who's ever used a Mac - and with whom I have already become friends. He's going to teach me to play disc golf, and in turn I'll teach him how to think you're exceptionally talented at pool while only having mediocre skills at the game.
Our first assignment as a team was to ditch the old numbering system bestowed upon us (we were "10") and to assign ourselves a name. I liken this to picking a name for a band; everyone will have ideas and none of them will make sense. In reality, only two of us had ideas, and mine were all Latin phrases. I was on the verge of voting for Chris's "USS Ronald Reagan," a several-degrees-of-separation inside joke about the prof's hair, until I thought of and blurted out "Ad Electrocutem." It's Latinesque, but it's a non-word related to Electrical Engineering if only by its root. Seeing that the other two liked it, I voted for the name I had invented, but I admit that the other one had more pluck and a cuter story behind it.
So, both of my readers, when you wonder why I'm not blogging as often, it's because of all of the value-added activities I'm doing at school.
posted by CyndyMW at
9:24 PM
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