Can you believe it?? I’m officially a second semester senior! It is crazy to think how fast my time has gone at USC for it only feels like yesterday I was moving in as a baby freshmen. Although it is frightening to think I will actually be a real adult soon, it is also exciting to think that I will be starting a new chapter of my life soon. However, I still have one more semester left to enjoy!
After the end of fall semester, I was really excited to go home for winter break. The longer I’m away the more I appreciate home and it was nice to spend time with my family and friends from high school! Besides catching up on sleep (i.e. sleeping in until noon) and eating all the snacks at home (thanks Mom), I also enjoyed the cold weather and all the snow. I was especially happy to get a White Christmas! Some fun things I did included attending the annual gingerbread house making party, going sledding, going ice skating on the frozen lake up in the mountains, and watching a bunch of movies! I also made sure to eat at all my favorite restaurants that are only in my hometown.
Skating on the frozen lake!
The annual Christmas pic of me and my brother
Now that I’m back at school, I’m getting adjusted back to the school grind. I’m taking a wide variety of classes, unlike my most recent semesters which were packed with mostly engineering classes. As always, I’m excited for my building science class, ARCH 405. This semester we are in teams working on a project which we will be entering into a nation wide student competition! The competition is called “Timber in the City” and the challenge is to design a mid-ride, mixed-use complex made out of wood.
I’m also taking CE 460 which is a construction engineering course, WRIT 340 which is a upper division writing class specifically designed for engineers, and ANTH 263 which is titled “Exploring Culture Through Film.” In that class we get to watch a bunch of movies that highlight different cultures and peoples around the world. However, the two classes I am most looking forward to are my two physical education classes. I’m taking Beach Volleyball and Physical Conditioning. I’m really exciting for Beach Volleyball because not only do I love Misty May and Kerri Walsh, but the class is actually on the beach in Santa Monica! It is going to be so nice to get to go the beach every week! Then in physical conditioning I am hoping to get in shape and learn some great workouts I can use after I graduate!
Besides classes, I’m also really looking forward to all my extracurricular activities and some exciting trips that I have planned. I’ll be competing in two different engineering competitions! The first one is for CMAA (Construction Management Association of America) where I will be traveling to Reno, NV in February to compete in an all-day construction problem simulation. I am on the design-build team where we have to design, estimate, schedule and plan an entire medical office building! We are a few weeks out so we are prepping hard with multiple mock competitions and meetings.
The second engineering conference I am attending is the Pacific Southwest Conference for ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) which is taking place in Long Beach, CA this year. At this competition we compete against 15 other schools in a variety of design team competitions like concrete canoe, steel bridge, environmental, geotech, etc and even some more non-engineering contests like volleyball, family feud, and scavenger hunt. After placing third the past two years we are at least looking for a three-peat, or to even place higher. I’m personally very involved with concrete canoe, and I’m really looking forward to being one of the people that gets to paddle the canoe!
Paddling the canoe!
Finally, the last thing I am looking forward to is the annual hockey tournament in Las Vegas, which is always one of the highlights of my spring semester. Not only do it is a fun and competitive weekend filled with hockey, and but it is always great getting to bond with the team which includes Ellen and Sophie! We are hoping to have a strong showing this year!
The VSA squad that will be representing in Vegas this year!
Between classes, clubs, and everything else going on it will be a busy last semester but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m looking forward to it all!
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