When you like your class, you get As and sometimes vice-versa

Once you begin to start your engineering career, you will start to realize that engineers get to do and study a lot of cool things. You will be able to work with dangerous liquids, thousand dollar machines and teachers that might be world renowned for their research. On top of working with people,  you will get to learn things like the science behind large chemical  reactors that you would never dream or even fathom of learning. These are a couple of  things that I looked forward to when it came to  studying engineering, but my classes and experiences only exceed my expectations. While I have gotten to use a lot of cool equipment like cool lasers and plasma burners, most of my favorite classes tended to be classes that I got A’s in; this might be because I got an A in them or I got an A in the class because I liked it so much.

I really enjoy any type of math and this love might have initially been spurred by my talent at it. I was actually genuine sad when I finished math freshmen year, but at least I finished with one of my favorite math courses, MATH 245 – Differential Equations. I really enjoyed this class and really enjoyed learning a process based math course that would hold such a large impact on all my classes in the future. My Junior semester courses have required extensive differential equation knowledge.  Luckily, I learned a lot in that class and was able to get an A from such a great teacher. I enjoyed taking the course because it was math, but I also enjoyed the teacher. Professor Sakai is still considered one of the favorite teachers I have had at USC and I took this course 2nd semester Freshmen Year. He explained everything in such detail while also making himself available to talk to whenever needed. This is similar to most teachers at USC, but he gladly would stay after class to explain any missed concepts.

My other favorite class shared very similar qualities especially a great teacher, Professor Jahan. My Physical Chemistry class taught by Professor Jahan changed my thinking and ultimately my approach to solving problems. While differential equations was mostly process based, physical chemistry was very theoretical and application based. We weren’t given many equations, but we had to manipulate these equations to prove our thoughts or answer various questions. Jahan (he likes to be called by his first name) was probably the best part of the class and my favorite teacher I have had at USC so far. He made such complex things reviewed in other classes seem so simple; it was like if we had a giant boulder, he would be the tool or person to break the boulder and turn it into pebbles. He was also willing to answer questions and take the time to explain things. He would even take it a step farther and attempt to answer questions that you might have thought have or even asked yet. Teachers like this is what makes USC’s engineering program so strong and competitive; it also is the reason why so many of our engineers come out of school with such high understanding of their subject and problem solving.