Dead Week/Finals

My old school had a dead week before finals, so I am somewhat familiar with the concept and the hectic studying that goes on during it. However, I feel that dead week here at Purdue is going to be a lot more challenging. This is probably because in high school most of my classes were fairly easy, whereas the classes in college are somewhat tougher, especially math. Math is absolutely murdering me right now, and I have no idea how I am going to pass the final. I suppose I will have to put in over 5 hours of studying every day! It's no surprise to me that dead week is going to be rough. In my freshman year of high school, I made the mistake of not doing any review before dead week, so I was in a mad rush to study everything before finals week. Four years on, I am in the same boat in my freshman year of college. The only difference is that I knew I should have studied before dead week, but with all the homework and projects in all my classes (especially ENGR131) I have had no time to study anything but what is taught in class on the day.

However, I am not totally unprepared for the madness of dead week. I have several strategies to maximize my efficiency and ensure that I am well-prepared for finals. First of all, I temporarily deleted all the games from my laptop and deactivated my Facebook account. Games and Facebook are my biggest two distractions from studying and sometimes hinder my productivity. Second, I have drawn up a timetable for all my studying. This way, I have spread out my studying over the entire week, organized every day into studying and non-studying blocks, accounted for homework that I still have to do, and focused on topics that I know I have trouble with. In my experience, this is probably the best way to go about studying during dead week, because otherwise you will feel overwhelmed by all the chapters you have to study.

Despite all the madness of dead week, there are two good things about it for me. One is that I only have to study for two finals - math and chemistry. The second is that, two days after dead week, I will be flying back home to New Jersey to enjoy a long Christmas break completely devoid of studying.

ENGRO103 Final Thoughts

My semester in ENGR103 has been a great experience. I have learned many things about cultures that I didn't know, such as the fact that engineers in different countries have different philosophies, strategies and mindsets. For example, when we learned about the Chunnel project, I was intrigued by the conflict in engineering styles between the French, who were more theoretical and liked to plan ahead, and the British, who improvised more and solved each problem as it came to them. I also learned about the many opportunities for study abroad that Purdue offers, and how they could be beneficial to my career as an engineer. Taking this class has made me want to pursue things in my career that I had not thought about before. In high school, I did not think much about studying abroad. I knew a transfer student from England who went to my school, and judging from how he felt I came to the conclusion that, while studying abroad would be a nice thing to experience once in my life, I would probably feel too out of place in a new country. However, since taking ENGR103, I have changed my mind and decided that I want to study abroad at least once in my college career, preferably in a country where the predominant language is not English. Overall, ENGR103 has been a great eye-opening experience for me in terms of both my engineering career and my personal thoughts and interests.

final week

This month is the end of the semester and the end of a year. I always surprised how fast the time passes. Next week is dead week, but it likes the beginning of the semester. I still remember what happened on the first classes. In the first ENGR team meeting, we said we don't like this class and hope we can survive from it. Now we finished our project and we did good job in the final presentation and team exam. Next week is time to say goodbye, since there will be many people who are in my classes right now that I won't see once the semester ends. At the same time, I must work hard in the last week to do the review because I almost forget what I learnt in the first lecture. It's too bad. I have three final exams, but I just begin to review chemistry. It's a long way to go. I hope I can good grades in the final so that I can get A.

Most people will go home and spend the break with families. Unfortunately, I have to stay in the dorm during the winter break. It's a good news for me that Purdue Village won't closed during the winter break. This is the first time I can't stay with my family when the New Year is coming. I'm sure I will miss them. There are some friends won't go home too. We can hold a party to celebrate the New Year. I hope we can have a wonderful party. We (me and my friends) plan to visit Chicago and New York. We can stay with other friends in New York and they can be our tourist guides. The trip makes the boring winter break seemed better. I can't wait for it!

This Weekend

Today I went to Scotty’s Brewhouse. This is a very big deal because it had been so long since I had a real burger. My roommate’s mom was in town and thought it would be good idea if we had dinner somewhere off campus and I could not have agreed more. The “back-yard bar-bq” burger was one of the most delicious burgers I have ever had. But that was just one highlight of the weekend. This past week, I started my weekend on Thursday. After having a chemistry and math exam, an early weekend was called for. Thursday I had a sleepover with some friends which probably was not one my best ideas because there was the 131 practical the next morning. But anyways, the rest of the weekend was super interesting. I’m just going to jump straight to the highlights…

Highlights From the Weekend: In Order
-made a new friend who has been to Tanzania!
-witnessed an arrest!
-last home game (probably one of the sloppiest games ever)
-saw “Breaking Dawn,” the new “Twilight” movie
-watched “Harry Potter 7: Part 2”
-went to the Silver Dipper, way too many ice cream flavors to choose from
-the cashier told us his friend got arrested the other day…SAME girl my friends and I saw! #SmallWorld
-got to drive! I have not driven a car since September and I was a little scared especially since it was not my car

To make it better, I woke up slow this morning. As in, no alarm, no noises in the hall to wake me; just chill waking up. It was very Jack Johnson. Overall, it’s been a good weekend. I have been trying to finish all homework early because as soon as I get home, I will most likely not be opening Connect, Webassign and Blackboard. Just two more days until home!

The weather here

Before I came to West Lafayette, friends told me the weather here is like that of Beijing, but the winter is much colder. My friends said their schools in Atlanta and New York always suspend classes due to the snow. The temperature here is not as low as I thought, but it always keeps changing. Every time when I go back to the dorm to add clothes, it becomes warm and stops raining. There are also a lot of rainy days. To be more exactly, it always drizzles. I am not used to walk in the rain although my roommate thinks that is pretty cool! I’m shocked when I saw many people still wear short-sleeved T-shirts and slippers when the temperature was close to zero. I think this is because of the popularity of gyms. Sometimes I leave the gym at 12:00am and many students are still there. I also see people running every day. It’s time for me to do more sports.

There was a Tornado warning this Tuesday. In fact, I’m curious about the Tornado. I think many people have the same feeling. I only heard about the enormous destructive of tornado from newspaper. Due to the special geographical, there are around 1000 times tornados in U.S every year. I remembered the alarm rang at 3:05p.m. But I just thought it was the fire alarm and I left the dorm and went to the class. After the chemistry exam, my friend told me the tornado alarm was ringing and RA told them to stay in the basement for 40 minutes. I was shocked. Fortunately, the tornado didn’t pass Purdue. I don’t want to image what would happen if the tornado passes Purdue when I leave the dorm. Maybe it can send me back to home and I don’t need to buy the airline ticket.

Africa

Africa has abundant natural resources. The gold and diamond reserves in Southern Africa are the highest in the world and the oil output takes about 12% of the world. Although Africa has so much wealth, such as mineral ores, petroleum, arable land, the governments didn’t utilize those resources. I think the harsh geographical environment increases the difficulties of exploration. Another reason should be the lack of technology and the shortage of the government’s finance. Due to the historical reason and geographical environment, many places in Africa have many problems including poverty, starvation, and lack of water. African countries rely on the help of other countries to solve those problems. The exploration need large amount of expenditure. I think it’s hard for the government to deal with all those problems together and spend lots of money on improving technology and investing the exploration. In order to explore the resources, they need to cooperate with other countries or get support from other countries.

Anticipation...

So every now and then, it hits me that I’m in college. Just earlier this year, we were all still in high school and college seemed so far away. Now it’s Week 13 and we are almost done with our first semester as college kids! By now, we most likely don’t a map to figure out where classes are, have planned out the perfect weekly meal plan and know when to do laundry. Going home for Thanksgiving will to be so exciting. I have not been back since September and I’m very much looking forward to it. Showers without flip flops, controlling the remote, FREE washer and dryers, home cooked meals and being able to drive anywhere! Oh yes, I am very eager. Also seeing my family and friends is going fun. Growing up, I always said how I was not going to miss my brothers very much when I left for college. But I find myself texting them every day. Somehow my being gone has brought my siblings and closer together. What I’m not looking forward to is the storm of questions. Sure I don’t mind answering questions about college and sharing stories of all my Purdue adventures, but I can only do it for so long. I can already see all the relatives shooting questions by the dozens. I just have to remember that they all mean well and are just excited for me. Seeing my high school friends is going to nuts! My group of six close friends went to five different colleges so story-telling time is going to chaotic. I have not seen half of them since August and the others I haven’t seen since September. My time back home will be divided between my friends and family at home.

Highlights From this Weekend:

-11:11 on 11/11/11…Epic wish!
-Purdue/OSU football game…rushing the field? No big deal
-Sunday Brunch…probably my favorite meal all week