Spring 13: A new variety of classes

I’m so excited to be back at school after a very fun and relaxing break up in Tahoe with a bunch of my engineering friends! It was great to get away for a while and the snow was phenomenal, but I’m really looking forward to all my classes and activities this semester, plus it has been great to see all my friends again!

First, I’m starting to get into all my upper division courses, where we take all the background and prereq classes and start to apply them to more specific areas.  My chemical engineering class this semester focuses on separation processes and how to go from one feed into products with specific goals.  I’m really excited about delving deeper into engineering topics, and my professor seems awesome.  I already had him for a programming class, and it’s nice to have a class where I’m already familiar with the teaching style.

Distillation- The basis of separations

I’m also taking Ochem this semester, and no matter how much I’ve heard about how everyone dreads it, I’m actually quite excited.  Even if the material is challenging, I think it will be really interesting to learn all about how life works and it definitely has real life significance.

My third class is technical writing for engineers, and this class should also be interesting because it has so many applications.  We are going to be writing proposals and technical descriptions, both of which will be useful in my future.

Also, I’m still working towards an art history minor and I’m taking a Renaissance art history course, my favorite period in history, so I can’t wait to learn more about this.

Finally, I’m very excited to be a part of the Viterbi iPodia program this spring.  The class that goes with this is called Principles and Practices of Global Innovation, and we work with campuses in Korea, China, and Israel, as well as people across a variety of majors, to learn about how innovation can be applied on a worldwide scale.  At the end of the class, we all get to travel to South Korea to present our projects at the USC Global Conference.  I never would have thought about traveling to Asia, and I’m super excited to have this opportunity to learn so much about other cultures.  I also have a lot of VSA friends taking the class so I’m sure there will be plenty to read about this program.

Seoul, South Korea

I also still have tons of extracurriculars going on! I’m going to be working on a more serious project in my research lab this semester and definitely making some progress there.  There are tons of fun events planned through my sorority I’m excited about; last week we all went ice skating together.  AIChE also has a ton of stuff planned, from tours of different companies to resume workshops to social events throughout LA.

My roommate and I ice skating

This semester is certainly going to be busy, but I’m very excited about everything that’s planned!