Finals Week

Holy Moses. It is finally upon us. Finals Week: The one time a semester that can reduce grown men to tears, sobbing and babbling in the fetal position buried underneath textbooks and study guides. The anxiety has been eating away at my insides for the past few weeks and now it is here. I had two exams yesterday, and boy, were those fun. My two hardest finals, and while I am glad that they are out of the way, I still feel some residual stress from them (like aftershocks) while I deal with the impending doom that is the latter half of my descent into insanity.

The two that I had yesterday were Physics 2 and Differential Equations. Neither class is particularly my favorite, so it took quite a bit of self-motivation to even get myself to study for them. Fortunately, with the help of my brothers at the fraternity, I was able to study some, and it was incredibly helpful come test time. I did much better than I thought I could do on both, and thanks to my prep work, I was able to do well. That's one thing about college I am still getting used to: studying.

If you are anything like me, studying wasn't something you really had to do in high school. Subjects just kind of came naturally to you, and you were able to do well without too much extra effort. Here and now, things have changed. This material is hard! I have to work to understand the material! I'm not trying to scare anyone here, I just am having problems because, well, I never learned how to study. Four years of high school without much studying needed, and now I find myself in a position where it is constantly necessary. What a change of pace, my friends. But I am blessed to have friends who not only have taken some of these classes before, but they can help me understand material and help me figure out what this whole "studying" thing is.

So I have decided to make my new year's resolution a bit early this time. I have decided to resolve to ask for more help. I haven't usually had to ask people for help with homework and such in high school, so nowadays it's extremely difficult for me to do. I know I will understand the material better if I ask someone (whether that someone is a classmate, brother, friend, or professor) but I just haven't been able to do that too much. I also resolve to go check out the Academic Resource Center (ARC) in Hermann Hall. They are there for a reason, I just have to take advantage of them (free tutors for almost every class!).

I see the light at the end of the tunnel for this semester. Only two finals left: Abnormal Psychology and Mechanics of Materials II. I foresee only one giving me a lot of grief, and once that's done, I am free for a month! Well, I'll still have Catholic Campus Ministry stuff to do (CCM), but that's another story. Wish me luck on the rest of my finals!

Song of the Day

Indian Giver - Squirrel Nut Zippers

Hey all! These last few weeks have blown by faster than I-don't-know-what, and that's scary considering the past weeks were filled with midterms, tests, and other academic shenanigans. I'm glad to have somewhat of a break before finals week kicks in and I'm knee-deep in studies. Midterms are what you would expect them to be, but nothing I couldn't handle. I also am officially registered for next semester! I talked with my adviser last week and this morning I got up early and beat the registration rush.

Registering for classes doesn't have to be the hassle some make it out to be, and as long as you meet with your academic adviser before your year's designated registration day you shouldn't have any problems. They know how your schedule should look, and with their help and the aid of a sample class schedule it's not too hard to piece something together. My circumstances were a bit different from the norm, as I switched majors, and the classes I need to take are not perfectly lined up with those of the normal group of ArchE's.

Classes are organized so students are ready to take certain classes in certain semesters. Because almost all ArchE's take, say, Structural Analysis I in their third semester, it's only offered in the fall. However, because of my weird circumstances, I need to take it next semester--which proved to be impossible since next semester happens to be the spring semester. So I had to adjust my schedule so I take that class next year, and I take different classes this spring. A bit of a snag, but nothing I couldn't handle, especially with the help of my adviser. I don't know if I would be this sure about my schedule without her help.

So now I can forget about spring semester for the time being and get back to preparing for finals week. I feel like I just started my fifth semester (Wow, am I already a third year?) and now finals are fast approaching--I already have a final paper due on Monday! So we'll see how the next few weeks play out.

It's not all doom and gloom, though! This Friday I am going to a concert (specifically, I am going to see my favorite band, Noah and the Whale, perform at Lincoln Hall downtown), and then Saturday is the best day of the year, Discover IIT Day! It is my favorite part of my job, and I can't wait to see everyone there!

Song of the Day

Rocks and Daggers - Noah and the Whale

IIT 101

Whew. I finally find myself with a small lull in the insanity that is my life. So now: on to (relatively old) business!

If any of you are cool like me, you have at the very least perused the blog of my coworker and good friend Jaye, and so you know a thing or two about IIT 101's. She goes into detail about them, so I won't repeat any of the lovely morsels of info she is sharing, so I will get right to the point about why I love them so. And having been to three of the four sessions this year I should know a thing or two about them.

When students are applying to colleges, a lot of them apply to a number of schools, many of which they only know a little bit about. Some of them don't have the time to go and visit all of the schools they are interested in, and that's where we as student ambassadors and admissions counselors come in with the IIT 101's.  We bring IIT to the students. Families don't have to leave their hometown; we set up shop in a hotel or restaurant in their town and invite them to stop by and hear all about IIT without having to take the trip to Chicago just yet. A lot of the students that go really enjoy hearing from the counselors and ambassadors.

And that's precisely why I like it. I love talking to students, and hearing their questions, concerns, but more than anything else, their excitement about the possibility of coming to IIT.

I love IIT, I'll say that right now. Through all the complaining about classes, waking up early and such, I really do. I also love talking about IIT. So therefore I also love my job. Talking about IIT is quite possibly the best job I've ever had, and to be able to talk with high school students who are equally enthusiastic makes it even better. And these kids are still in high school! They haven't spent any time here and already they're enjoying IIT as much as I am!

A lot of these students I end up seeing as freshman the next year or two, and I hope that this time won't be any different. To those of you who came to the 101's, I hope to see you next fall! Or even sooner if you want to come to our Discover Days (October 15th!)!

Song of the Day

Jake Shimabukuro - Thriller

IPRO 322: Solar Panels

This summer I had the wonderful opportunity to be a part of an IPRO. As I had never done an IPRO before, it was a bit of an adventure. There is no program quite like the IPRO program, and I was a bit nervous, and more than a bit excited on what was in store for me.

The IPRO program works like this: each project is an individual class (IPRO 333, IPRO 322, etc) and you can register for whichever one interests you when you register for the rest of your classes. These projects come mostly from two main places--professors come up with a lot of them, but another large portion comes from outside companies who want students to work on an idea of own.

That's the wonderful thing about the IPRO program; all the work you are doing is not theoretical, because you are working on a real problem, for a real person, and you get real results. My IPRO, 322, came into being because a representative for SolarWind USA came to IIT asking for students to help develop a product, namely, a battery-ballasted solar panel mounting system with an integrated electrical system for industrial and commercial applications.

So an IPRO team was formed, consisting of students from many different majors (in this respect, working in this program is much like working in the field; you may be the only person knowledgeable on a particular subject, and you are looked to as the expert in your field) coming together to work on this one project--in this case, a solar panel mount.

Now, I can't go into too many details about our design and research, but I can talk about my experience in the program. And my experience was fantastic. The first thing we did as a group was talk to our sponsor (who actually came to campus about once a week to see how we were progressing). He told us what SolarWind wanted out of us and gave us some of his own ideas about how to proceed. We then started to form our own ideas, and did a lot of research on the subject of solar panels. Because, believe it or not, we knew nothing about solar panels, let alone the electrical systems. Fortunately, the electrical engineers on our team were more than up to the task, and the rest of us started coming up with ideas for the mount, how it would operate, how it would look, and how customers would react to it.

We then planned out a budget, which we ran by the IPRO department. We also had a large monetary contribution from our sponsor, since a lot of the equipment we'd need was a bit pricey. Our very first concept model (pictured above with two of my team members) was anything but, however; it was built mainly to visualize how our first coherent design would function. As we progressed we developed better ideas, and with the help of our extensive research we came up with something that we are all really proud of (you can see a component of our final design at the top of the post--I can't show the full design, but you at least have an idea).

At the end of the semester we presented our work to a panel of judges as part of "IPRO Day," as sort of collegiate-level science fair, with all the other IPRO's presenting their work, and setting up booths for faculty, judges, staff, and students to check out. At the end of the day the judges submitted their votes for who had the best project, and, guess what? We won! We won best in track (there are two tracks, each containing similar project themes, ours being sustainability), and we tied for best overall. It was so gratifying after spending all those weeks working so hard on a project that, eight weeks before, we knew absolutely nothing about. No other school has an IPRO program, and I feel lucky that I was able to participate in it. At IIT, students have to take two IPRO's while they're here, and I have seen only benefits from this program. I am definitely looking forward to my next one.

To see what kind of projects the IPRO teams are working on right now, you can check them out here.
To see a detailed description of my IPRO, IPRO 322, click here.

Song of the Day: Portugal the Man -- "Work All Day"

A Summer! I Had One!

Me on vacation in San Diego. Don't I look happy?

WHEW. And what a summer it has been! Granted, we're more than halfway through September and the semester started in late August, but NO MATTER. I will be telling my tale of summertime campus adventures over the course of a couple of posts, so for now, brace yourselves for part one.

In order to catch up on classes after switching majors from Architecture to Architectural Engineering (I'll get into that in another post) , I decided to take a couple summer classes, Calculus 2 and IPRO 322. The original plan was to commute every day (which from Naperville is not preferable for me--I like sleeping, and waking up at 4am to get here by seven just wasn't jiving with me), take two classes during the day and come home in the evenings. I had a similar he[ck] schedule last summer, except when I came home I still had the pleasure of going to a night class at the local community college. Fortunately for me, I was able to get a hold of on-campus housing for the summer not a week after the summer semester started.

You see, I am in a fraternity, Alpha Sigma Phi. When I got off the IIT shuttle bus at 7am, I would walk over to the chapter house on the Quad and would crash there for an hour or two before work and class (Did I mention? I work too! Joy!). Now, before you ask me, "Tony, why on earth would you go to campus so darn early if you don't have work for another hour or two?" The answer is thus: I have no transportation of my own, and, fortunately for me, my dad happens to be going my way, as he works here at Illinois Tech. So I have to go by his schedule, which, not-so-fortunately for me, means waking up before the sun.

This is where I stayed during the summer

The Resident Advisor (RA) of the chapter house noticed me hanging around so early in the morning (it's kind of hard to ignore a grown man sprawled across a couch, face pressed into the cushion creases), and asked me why I wasn't living in the house for the summer. I didn't really have a reply to that, so he offered me an empty room in exchange for some manual labor that needed to be done around the house that summer. So huzzah for me! No more waking up before dawn! No more falling asleep at the dinner table! And I could still get to work on time. And now I am an expert at replacing screen doors and shoveling ceramic (long story). What a beautiful thing.

During the weekday I went to class, studied, and generally was an academic. On the weekends I turned into my alter-ego, LaborMan, and toiled away in between hanging out with friends. And after the summer semester I got to spend two weeks in beautiful sunny Arizona, where I golfed my arms sore and napped in some of the most beautiful places in America, including San Diego, which we drove to from Phoenix. I could have not asked for a better summer (well, it might have been better had there not been classes at all, but that's how it goes).

In my next installment (this is sounding more and more like a radio serial) I will detail my first-ever IPRO experience. Tune in next week (or whenever I get around to posting)!