Ever since I was young, I always loved the smell, taste and idea of coffee, and on a high note, this semester’s class schedule will be a great way for me to pursue this habit regularly especially Monday thru Wednesday. It’s amazing how different my semester six looks compared to semester one schedule at USC. Freshman year I had four big classes, two were engineering, then I had writing and a GE; I had class Monday thru Friday and they mostly fell between 9:30am and 3:30pm much like in high school. But now I have five engineering-based classes that meet Monday thru Wednesday, one hour on Friday, and my Grad class schedule changes week to week. So heres a quick rundown of my semester and what kind of work and things I do in each of them…
- AME 308—Computer-Aided Analyses for Aero-Mechanical Design. This class meets only once a week which is a nice change, and as you can guess from the course title, its all in SAL computer lab where we learn how to use solidworks and solid edge to design 3D models of parts related to engineering. Pretty cool stuff so far!
- BME 423—Statistical Methods in Biomedical Engineering. Lots statistics and data analysis. Its my first ever statistics class and so far I’m enjoying it and its fun having a class with just BME students
- EXSC 580b—Experimental Studies of Human Performance. My first official grad class! I’m doing the five year program where Ill graduate with a Bachelors and a Masters degree through the Progressive Degree Program (often referred to as PDP). Our class is much smaller with only about ten students (mostly BME and Kinesiology majors). It’s a nice break from traditional classes I’ve had here at USC and it is with the same faculty and lab as my research!
- EE 200—Electrical Engineering Systems. My EE class has a combo of weekly lectures and lab; while the material is pretty challenging and almost in a different language (lots signals to manipulate and computer programming in Matlab!) my teacher and TAs are awesome so hopefully it’ll all work out!
- PHYS 153—Optics and Modern Physics. This is my third physics class so far and although this class results in having an hour of class on Fridays and a three hour lab each week, the workload has been manageable so far with weekly assignments and labs that are completed in lab section (so I don’t have to bring it home for homework!)
The time management is definitely a new type of challenge for me to get things done early because the first half of the week is just crazy hectic, but thankfully Thursdays and Fridays are a bit more relaxed so I can work on homework, work in my research lab, and do other fun things on campus too!
