So considering it’s the beginning of the semester and there’s a good 15 weeks or so ahead of me until finals (I think that’s right counting Spring Break?) I thought I might try and give you a glimpse of what the semester ahead should hold for me. Whether or not everything I type here will take place is not 100% but it should give you an accurate glimpse of what a semester here at Viterbi might (and could) hold in store for you.
I’ll start off by talking a bit about my classes… I’ll try not to bore you too much with the details though — just some short and sweet summaries:
EE-330: Electromagnetics for Electrical Engineers… More upper level physics, this time really applying it to the devices EE’s use on a daily basis
EE-348: Electronic Circuits… Designing circuits based on given parameters whilst paying attention to the behavior of the elements to achieve desired results — essentially a typical circuits class (resistors, voltages, currents) but now upper-level and on steroids
ITP-499: Android App Development
BAEP-499: Taking the Leap… Entrepreneurial seminar featuring famous guest speakers that looks at what it means and what it takes to be successful
MKT-445: New Product Development and Branding… How to create a product and brand someday that will dominate the market — and what the significance of a brand means
MKT-470: Market Research
So those are my six classes… A lot of class, but definitely worth it. Two classes for the major, two for the minor (Marketing – Advertising), and two for fun 🙂 Hopefully it won’t be too heavy a workload and I can be successful with the classes and concepts listed above. (
Beyond simply school, I will continue to be Social Events Chair for the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers aka IEEE (http://www-scf.usc.edu/~ieee/index/) and Treasurer of Eta Kappa Nu aka HKN (http://www-scf.usc.edu/~hkn/index.html). I love being part of socieities and doing cool stuff — like when myself and a few IEEE’ers went to Consumer Electronics Show aka CES (http://www.cesweb.org/) last week in Las Vegas (btw this will be my blog topic for next week and there will be LOTS of pictures!).
In my free time beyond school and societies and clubs and the lot — which I will definitely have a lot of if I plan my time out well — I’m not too certain what exactly I’ll be doing. I’m sure I will definitely be hanging out with my friends being up to who knows what on many occasions. I’m looking to get back into playing a bit more video games this semester too. I fact, over Christmas Break I played Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and absolutely loved it. I will also have to budget this free time well in order to apply for internships this coming summer — I have options of places to apply and we’ll see where I eventually get in. My first internship at Cypress Semiconductor (what will be) 2 summers ago was great and I look to build from there.
As far as in-semester vacations… I actually just returned today from a trip to Reno, NV where we went snowboarding up at Lake Tahoe, CA. The weather and trip were great! I plan on possibly going on more vacations whenever I get the time — Presidents Day weekend, Spring Break, and pretty much any other weekend because I don’t have any Friday class! 😀 Hopefully I’ll get to check out a few new things around LA on the way too — gotta love places like Santa Monica, Venice Beach, The Grove but I also want to try some new stuff like hiking up to the Hollywood sign, maybe go skydiving, and discovering some more of LA’s great food options.
That’s about it from me. Hopefully that gives a pretty decent glimpse of a semester of life at Viterbi — you can always comment if you want to know more. Sorry if it’s wordy!
Until next time (when I break down our adventures at CES!)…
R
