On the Other End of Spring Semester

After suffering through putting a lot of effort into Intro to ChemE, multivariable calculus, and Honors General Chemistry fall semester, I found spring semester more relaxed, especially since I only ended up taking two engineering classes.  I dropped engineering stats a couple weeks into the semester for multiple reasons, one being that it was in a somewhat inconvenient time slot.  This way I got to eat lunch on Mondays.

Out of my remaining classes, one was Intro to Microeconomics, which didn't require a whole lot of outside work, and another was my writing seminar, which I just didn't care about mainly involved reading.  That left differential equations and my intro to computing class – I took MATLAB.  I wouldn't say either class was easy, but compared to Schrodinger’s equation and triple integrals in spherical coordinates, spring semester on the engineering front was definitely less ridiculous mind bending.

Here’s the rundown:

Introduction to Microeconomics: Since I had AP physics credit and didn't need to struggle through force diagrams and circuits again, I decided to get started on fulfilling my liberal studies requirements. The way this class was run spring semester, instead of problem sets we had to do online quizzes; that combined with the fact that I’d taken half a year of economics during my senior year of high school meant that this class wasn't too high on my I’m-going-to-fail-this-class-if-I-don’t-start-studying-yesterday list.  The material was interesting, and I did still learn some things, especially about consumer/firm theory and market structures.

American Voices: Monumental America: My second and last first year writing seminar.  I liked the discussions and content of this writing seminar better than the one I took fall semester.  However, my last writing seminar probably did more to improve my literary analysis in my writing.  But I’m an engineer, and among other things, I've been told to write entirely in passive voice before.

Differential Equations for Engineers: From what I can tell, a large difference between engineering math classes and math classes for other people is the proofs.  In over eighty math lectures, the closest thing I saw to a proof was a “proof.”  It went something like this: “So this leads to this, which we’re going to assume is true, and then you should believe this because I say it’s true, which means that this is the answer we’re looking for.  Now let’s do an example.”  Not much else to say about this class except that I now know how to separate variables and the professor I had takes some getting used to (including his inability to actually press down hard enough with the chalk on the chalkboard to make visible lines).

Introduction to Computing with MATLAB: or something like that. Everyone just calls it MATLAB. Definitely an intro class, since I did fine without having coded a single program before taking the class. My favorite projects were the ones with graphics (including a MATLAB valentine and several fractals), but MATLAB blackjack was pretty amusing as well.

And lastly,

Basic Rock Climbing: I've said it before, but this is the best PE class I've taken. I technically don’t have to take any more PE classes to graduate, but I've already jumped into cold bodies of water and climbed out of windows. A little more exercise couldn't hurt. Right?  So I enrolled in hiking for next semester.