Hey guys!
Hope your holidays were great and that your new year is starting out nicely… To start off this semester, I wanted to give you a recap of what I did over break and give you a sneak peek of what I’ll be up to this semester. I spent the first half of my break in Santa Barbara with my family and the other half I spent in South Africa in the Cape Town area!
Santa Barbara was great as I was able to get some much needed R&R, including playing around with my camera and learning how to do star trail photography (see my first photo ever below!).
Some of the highlights from my trip to South Africa include:
Hiking: There are a lot of great hikes and climbs around the Cape Town area, and I was lucky to be able to fit in Lions Head (which is right next to Table Mountain), Botmanskop, and a couple of mountains out in the desert. The views from the peaks were stunning, and were some of the best hikes that I have ever done!
Penguins: In Simonstown, Boulder’s Beach is home to a colony of penguins that have become one of the biggest tourist destinations in the Southern Hemisphere (for good reason). We were able to see about two hundred penguins, some of which went swimming with us!
Safari: We made a trip out to the Karoo desert to a private nature reserve to go on a safari. We saw a lot of the wildlife that Africa is famous for, some of which I was able to capture below!
All in all, South Africa was one of my favorite trips that I’ve ever been on so far, but I am extremely excited to be back and start classes again (for the last time, at least for a while)!
The classes I am taking this semester include:
BME405L : Senior Projects, Measurements and Instrumentation
This class allows seniors to use all the skills and knowledge that we have learned over the course of our four years at Viterbi to, simply put, create an object from scratch that is capable of accurately measuring a number of biomedical parameters. Each group chooses a different project to work on; some clinical, some personal, but there are always some great projects that come out of the class. I’m really looking forward to working on it, and you’ll definitely be hearing more about my project throughout the course of the semester.
CTCS466: Theatrical Film Symposium
This class is one that a lot of people love to take at one point or another while they are at USC. You might have already heard about it as the class where “you get to see movies before they come out in theatres”, because that’s essentially what it is. Last week, we got a sneak preview of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is an adaption of the original to include zombies (it comes out in February). It was a fantastic adaption, and I can’t wait to see what other movies we’ll get to see in the coming weeks (fingers crossed for Deadpool).
BME410: Introduction to Biomaterials Engineering (aka Tissue Engineering)
I am incredibly excited to take this class as tissue engineering is one of the main things that got me interested in biomedical engineering in the first place. This course basically gives you the background knowledge on how tissues engineering processes are completed, from cell mediums and delivery systems and more.
BME402: Control and Communication in the Central Nervous System
This class goes into great detail about how the central nervous system functions; starting with neurons and moving into the physiological system as a whole.
NAUT101A: Deepwater Cruising (aka Sailing)
This is another popular class at USC as it allows students to learn a bit about sailing, which is capped off with a final weekend trip out to Catalina.
BAEP470: The Entrepreneurial Mindset: Taking the Leap
Home to speakers like Mark Cuban, Jessica Alba, and more, this class brings in highly successful entrepreneurs to talk about their journeys and provide insight and inspiration for up and coming entrepreneurs.
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