college
Okay, so an update on college life so far.. in case anyone's wondering. I'm gonna give my opinion on the classes.. and then I'll talk about everything else. Woot.
Well, we've had a week of classes now.. (first week was orientation goodness) so I've had all of my classes (except frontiers in engineering, which is just attending an hour thing and getting free lunch). So, here they are...
Math 1A: So far so easy. We've done some proof by induction.. and now we're learning limits.. I don't really like the proofs for those though. Ah well. Lecture is kinda boring right now. And I'm not sure which section I'm in, but I went to Ali's section cause he's cool! Yeah so math seems good.
Chem 1A: I seriously have forgotten all of high school chemistry. This is sad. I will have to pay attention to lecture and stuff... and read the book and try to learn this stuff well, cause my background on chem is bad. Also, I'm in the section for people who don't have a good high school background, so that's good. Although I still didn't understand much in there... some stuff sounded familiar. Hehe.. But last week was like a review homework set, so hopefully the homeworks on stuff that we learn here will be better. I don't really like lectures being on power point slides.. especially when the background is filled in so it's terrible to print.. but I'll get used to it. And I'll use a library printer instead of my own. Eventually.
Physics 1A: Same as with the chemistry.. I'm in the slow section. But physics is easier than chem so far.. But I've heard that he just makes it easy for the first couple of weeks. Oh well. Goodstein shows us parts of his videos.. which has a bad effect on me cause it makes me think of Carter's class. Oh well.. at least he also lectures. But I haven't really payed attention yet cause it's basic stuff, like... a derivative.
APh/EE 9A: This sounds like it will be a fun lab. I signed up for lab on Wednesday afternoons.. so Wednesday will be busy.. I don't really understand much.. but the prof said that we're not supposed to. I got the lab manual today.. haven't really looked at the homework so I don't know how difficult it will be. I'm sure this will take a lot of time though. But it sounds interesting, so that's good.
Humanities 7: This is Modern European Literature. There are like 8 people in our class.. so popular (sarcasm). We're reading poetry now.. by Hardy. I don't really like his poetry. All the themes of time passing and death coming and changing everything and.. death.. blah. I've had enough of that stuff. Plus, poetry takes longer to read than prose. And it's extremely difficult to understand the prof because he mumbles. So I can't hear him, even though I'm sitting about 7 feet away from him. Maybe I'll learn to understand mumblespeak.
Math 17: This is a problem solving thing, like the problems in math competitions. It's fun, but I'm bad at solving those types of problems.. so I feel stupid. =\ Oh well.. maybe I'll get better at it. That's what I took the course for...
PE 27A: Ultimate Frisbee!! I didn't go last Monday cause of rotation dinner (see below). But I went on Wednesday and did drills but didn't play (I was sick). It will be a fun class! I'll get better at frisbee, and I'll actually learn with real official rules and stuff! So I'm excited. Basically I have to go to class to pass, so I'll do well. =D
Okay, so that's all my courses (besides E 2, which is the lunch course - just go to class and you'll pass). Basically, I'm excited about pass/fail, cause then I don't have to worry as much about my scores. I just have to do everything.. lots of problem sets and joy. But they're all due on different days, so that's happy.
Now, for the rest of Caltech! If you didn't know already, the house system at Caltech is kinda weird. Basically there are 8 "houses" where you can live, and it's kinda like Hogwarts with the house system. You do activities with your house, eat dinner with them, and live there. So us frosh (freshman), aka pre-frosh before this week, because we weren't officially frosh, had to go through "rotation" to see which houses we liked. We ate lunches and dinners at different houses and they had activities for us. We met people and talked to them to see if we enjoyed the houses. Each house has a stereotype.. but you have to meet the people for yourself. So, that was a good time. I won't explain what happened at all of the houses.. but yesterday (Sunday), was the end of rotation. On Saturday, the prefrosh got to rate 5 of the houses (you have no chance of getting into the 3 that you don't rate). Then at the end of rotation, the cannon fires and all the pre-frosh, now officially frosh, go look for which house they think is theirs. There are elaborate initiation ceremony things which I won't go through.. but I'll just say that I ended up in Blacker! So that was pretty cool, and I'm excited. So now I am a frosh, and I will move into my new room (which is still in the mods.. just across the street...) on Wednesday. Happy times.
I'd write more, but I have class soon. That's just basically what's been happening with my college life. I miss home, but I'm still having fun here. =)
Well, we've had a week of classes now.. (first week was orientation goodness) so I've had all of my classes (except frontiers in engineering, which is just attending an hour thing and getting free lunch). So, here they are...
Math 1A: So far so easy. We've done some proof by induction.. and now we're learning limits.. I don't really like the proofs for those though. Ah well. Lecture is kinda boring right now. And I'm not sure which section I'm in, but I went to Ali's section cause he's cool! Yeah so math seems good.
Chem 1A: I seriously have forgotten all of high school chemistry. This is sad. I will have to pay attention to lecture and stuff... and read the book and try to learn this stuff well, cause my background on chem is bad. Also, I'm in the section for people who don't have a good high school background, so that's good. Although I still didn't understand much in there... some stuff sounded familiar. Hehe.. But last week was like a review homework set, so hopefully the homeworks on stuff that we learn here will be better. I don't really like lectures being on power point slides.. especially when the background is filled in so it's terrible to print.. but I'll get used to it. And I'll use a library printer instead of my own. Eventually.
Physics 1A: Same as with the chemistry.. I'm in the slow section. But physics is easier than chem so far.. But I've heard that he just makes it easy for the first couple of weeks. Oh well. Goodstein shows us parts of his videos.. which has a bad effect on me cause it makes me think of Carter's class. Oh well.. at least he also lectures. But I haven't really payed attention yet cause it's basic stuff, like... a derivative.
APh/EE 9A: This sounds like it will be a fun lab. I signed up for lab on Wednesday afternoons.. so Wednesday will be busy.. I don't really understand much.. but the prof said that we're not supposed to. I got the lab manual today.. haven't really looked at the homework so I don't know how difficult it will be. I'm sure this will take a lot of time though. But it sounds interesting, so that's good.
Humanities 7: This is Modern European Literature. There are like 8 people in our class.. so popular (sarcasm). We're reading poetry now.. by Hardy. I don't really like his poetry. All the themes of time passing and death coming and changing everything and.. death.. blah. I've had enough of that stuff. Plus, poetry takes longer to read than prose. And it's extremely difficult to understand the prof because he mumbles. So I can't hear him, even though I'm sitting about 7 feet away from him. Maybe I'll learn to understand mumblespeak.
Math 17: This is a problem solving thing, like the problems in math competitions. It's fun, but I'm bad at solving those types of problems.. so I feel stupid. =\ Oh well.. maybe I'll get better at it. That's what I took the course for...
PE 27A: Ultimate Frisbee!! I didn't go last Monday cause of rotation dinner (see below). But I went on Wednesday and did drills but didn't play (I was sick). It will be a fun class! I'll get better at frisbee, and I'll actually learn with real official rules and stuff! So I'm excited. Basically I have to go to class to pass, so I'll do well. =D
Okay, so that's all my courses (besides E 2, which is the lunch course - just go to class and you'll pass). Basically, I'm excited about pass/fail, cause then I don't have to worry as much about my scores. I just have to do everything.. lots of problem sets and joy. But they're all due on different days, so that's happy.
Now, for the rest of Caltech! If you didn't know already, the house system at Caltech is kinda weird. Basically there are 8 "houses" where you can live, and it's kinda like Hogwarts with the house system. You do activities with your house, eat dinner with them, and live there. So us frosh (freshman), aka pre-frosh before this week, because we weren't officially frosh, had to go through "rotation" to see which houses we liked. We ate lunches and dinners at different houses and they had activities for us. We met people and talked to them to see if we enjoyed the houses. Each house has a stereotype.. but you have to meet the people for yourself. So, that was a good time. I won't explain what happened at all of the houses.. but yesterday (Sunday), was the end of rotation. On Saturday, the prefrosh got to rate 5 of the houses (you have no chance of getting into the 3 that you don't rate). Then at the end of rotation, the cannon fires and all the pre-frosh, now officially frosh, go look for which house they think is theirs. There are elaborate initiation ceremony things which I won't go through.. but I'll just say that I ended up in Blacker! So that was pretty cool, and I'm excited. So now I am a frosh, and I will move into my new room (which is still in the mods.. just across the street...) on Wednesday. Happy times.
I'd write more, but I have class soon. That's just basically what's been happening with my college life. I miss home, but I'm still having fun here. =)