Isn't she lovely?
Despite the fact that first week was slow, these past two weeks flew by pretty fast. I still feel like I'm new to all the classes, but before I know it, it's gonna be exam time...
Out of all my classes, I'm not particularly enjoying my ME design class and partial diffeq. I really looked forward to math before school started, but my professor is kind of boring. Design class is also a big disappointment. I'm not that interested in our problem, and there's a lot of tedious research and memo writing. boo.
ME365, Systems and Measurement, is actually turning out to be ok. The first few lectures were not that enjoyable, and my professor isn't very good at teaching either, but we just started doing some basic statistic and sampling, which brings back memories of my IE stat class. Maybe I miss it alittle, but I think I did myself I favor switching out of IE. In the 365 lab today, we played around with an ADC (
Analog to Digital Converter), which basically translate analog signals to bits for the computer can interpret, and the converts it back to the original signal to be outputted. The lab wasn't that interesting, but it was in the end that made everything so great. The TA demonstrated the ADC converter with music. The input was a song playing from a computer, and the signal is monitored on the oscilloscope. The input runs through the ADC and then it output it through speakers. He demonstrated the change in signal by tweaking the sampling rate and adding filters, where all the effects are noticeable by the change in the music.
It was really insightful, because I finally understand what sampling rate meant in mp3s, how hi-pass/lo-pass actually works, and lots of other things. I always hoped that I would learn about this, and now I have.
Science is a great thing.
Speaking of science, this whole week had been pretty busy with all the
job fair dealies. I was pretty excited about the prospect of Industrial Roundtable, because I was really looking forward to speaking with some of the companies. Last Sunday I attended "
Day with Industries" hosted by PSWE. Basically it was banquet lunch with company representatives followed by 3 seminar sessions hosted by different companies. The lunch was pretty good, and I sat by a BME grad from GE. I'm not really interested in GE, but it was good networking considering the people at my table had some interesting experiences. The seminars were abit boring. They were pretty much the same and talked about how students should prepare for the career fair. I did attend the BP session, where they talked about projects and activities in the downstream refineries.
Tuesday was the first day of IR. I was still a little nervous stepping foot on the fair ground even though I've experienced it last year. I spent about 3 hours on Tuesday talking to companies and loitering around scouting out free stuff. Surprisingly I was able to give away all 10 copies of the resume I had printed off. Not bad, plus the bag full of loot, with half of it being food products from P&G and Unilever. Tuesday night was a pre-interview dinner with
Chevron. They pre-screened a lot of the resume before the fair, so I landed an interview with them wed. The dinner was at Maize, and I had a really tasty Brazilian steak. My past 2 experiences at Maize wasn't that great, but I did enjoy it this time. The Chevron rep that sat at my table was a CE. He talked too much, and so did everyone else at my table, but I guess the food makes up for it. I glanced at the bill at the end of the night, and it ended up being a gram (I'd say there were about 20-25 people). Damn cooperates and their monies.
Too be honest, my interest in oil companies is pretty indifferent. I really want to work on a alternative energy project, but that's not available for interns. When I was going to my interview, I ran into a friend/fellow ME student, and he frowned upon the fact that I'm interviewing with an oil company. "I never expected you would want to work for them, oil companies are evil" he said.
I told my interviewer about the story, and asked what his thoughts were. He answered it very well, and concluded with "before you blame others, look in the mirror."
Totally well put.
The interview with Chevron was harder than I thought, and I didn't enjoy it too much. I still did well though, and got a pretty decent backpack out of it. Because my interview was in the afternoon, I didn't get too much time to walk about IR afterwards. I stopped by the companies I was interested in, and went home.
That night, I got a call from
International Papers, whose booth I visited on Tuesday. I had an interview with them the following day, and it went well. My interviewer talked a lot about his experience with international projects, and it was so cool to hear all the global opportunities. in retrospect, that's really what I want to do when I graduate, work and traveling.
I'm still waiting to hear from the companies that I was really interested in, but that might not be few a few month. I'm excited about the prospect of an internship in a great city, with great people, and a wonderful company.
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