The No-Longer-Hypothetical List of Exciting Things That Have Happened to me at Cornell, Spring 2016 Edition

1. Grad school visits – Besides partaking in fun activities and alcohol, I met professors and grad students and found out about the places that could be my new home for the next five years. Highlights at Carnegie Mellon include walking around Schenley Park and a night visit to PNC Park, while at Michigan I worked on my bowling skills and went ice skating. In my travels I also got to take eight plane rides and visit five airports.

2. Cayuga Trail – Ever since one of my roommates and I hiked the whole Cayuga Trail in a day but returned to Cornell a different way, we wanted to hike the whole Cayuga Trail, out and back, in a day. Over spring break, we finally did it. We met a little after eight in the morning and ten hours later we were at the Commons eating burgers. We did walk down to the Commons but we rode the bus back to my apartment. My final mile count for the day was somewhere around 20 miles.

3. Fancy dress day – Weekly presentations for Senior Design require business formal dress. Fancy dress day involves almost everything except business formal. The best costume award went to the group dressed like Pac-Man and ghosts, but other costumes involved everything from balloons to animal footie pajamas to full body blue paint to a lightsaber. The lightsaber was mine. I gave my group’s presentation in penguin pajama pants, socks, and an American flag bow tie using my lightsaber as a pointer. It was actually the best pointer I’ve used. The rationale behind fancy dress day is that if you can present dressed like a hippo or half naked or whatever, you can certainly present to a few industry representatives. I think that argument has some merit, but honestly, but that point in the semester, everyone in Olin Hall could just use a laugh.

4. Pep band al fresco – This was my very last pep band event. As always, for the last rehearsal of the spring semester, we took the band outside to play around campus. We played a variety of perennial band favorites, ending on the slope with the Alma Mater, one last time. Besides ChemE, pep band was really the only other thing I did week in and week out for all four years at Cornell. I’d like to go back to concert band in grad school, but I’ll miss playing the Canadian and American national anthems, Davy times ten thousand, the Alma Mater at every single game, movies on bus rides, Lynah traditions, the band room, nonsensical heckling (e.g. “Princeton’s in New Jersey”), and all the other ridiculous things that happen in a student-run band for whom the name of the game (and their actual name) is pep.

5. Graduating – Well, it happened. Finally. We had unfortunate weather on Saturday for Convocation and different unfortunate weather on Sunday for Commencement. We then returned to our home away from home, Olin Hall, for the ChemE ceremony and reception. The diplomas were mailed and received, and just like that, we were done.

Schoellkopf Stadium during Convocation

Semester in Review, Spring 2016

This was it. My last semester at Cornell. I took the capstone ChemE class, a ChemE related elective, a non-ChemE related elective, and research.

Chemical Process Design – This is the capstone design class for Cornell Chemical Engineers. Each team of four is given a design problem, in my case increasing the value of a mixed hydrocarbon stream by reacting and separating it. We were then tasked with choosing the processes, equipment, operating conditions, and controls needed to achieve our goal. We also determined the economic feasibility of the project, but I was not our group’s money person. Every week, we reported our progress on the week’s assigned topics to our manager (professor) and supervisor (TA) at either a less formal round table meeting or a formal presentation. At the end of the semester, we made a final presentation to our professor, TA, and industry professionals. A worthwhile experience, though I’m not sure I can say I really enjoyed it . . . except for fancy dress day and finishing our last presentation.

Aerosols and Colloids – I needed a class to fulfill an elective slot and chose this class because apparently I couldn’t go an entire semester without a ChemE academic intensive class. [Senior design really focuses on being able to present information and defend the rationale behind your decisions.] I was interested in the material but I might have benefited from another semester of fluids, which, not coincidentally, I’ll be getting in the fall.

Research – In the fall, I started research late in the semester so I decided not to do it for credit. This spring, I took credit and used it as an elective. I mainly worked on chemical synthesis and perfecting my NMR technique, and it was a good complement to the research I had done over the summer. During the summer, I worked on programming and read lots of fun abstract papers about computational rheology. Then in the fall and spring, I returned to the lab and got more hands on experience.

Introduction to Wines – Unlike every other (non-PE) class I took at Cornell, I did not need these credits to graduate, however, I couldn’t miss out on this Cornell classic and senior favorite. Every week, with a few exceptions, all 700-plus of the students in the class met in the Statler auditorium to learn about a different wine region and taste five to seven wines. We were educated on the climate, geography, wine laws, history, and major varietals of France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, Chile, and regions of the United States. I also learned that wine is made from grapes if I want tannins (found in red wines) I’d rather just eat grapes. In addition, we were introduced to the Finger Lakes specialty that is dry Riesling. This ranks as one of my favorite Cornell classes through all four years.

And with passing grades in each of the above classes, I finished everything I needed to graduate. Next semester I’ll be at another university in another state in a building that is not called Olin Hall.

Beer, bowling, and Boeing 747s*

In other words, another grad school visit. This week, the destination was Ann Arbor to visit the University of Michigan. I left at the more sane hour of 10 am after paying a quick visit to Olin to check in on our design presentation. Without having to wait for things like the computers to warm up and the deicer, I reached my first stop, Philadelphia, in plenty of time to catch my connecting flight to Detroit. The joke of this trip was that Detroit is one of the three places you can fly directly to from Ithaca but the flight was full by the time I booked my tickets.

The flight to Detroit landed early, of all things, but we had to wait for a few other flights and ended up standing around the baggage claim for an hour before getting stuck in Ann Arbor traffic for another hour. By the time we got to the hotel, we had just enough time to check in, get our information packets for the weekend, and head back out for dinner. We were taken to a bar for burgers and beer (both good) to meet professors and grad students. After dinner at the bar, we were taken out for drinks at another bar. Only in college. It was a good first night.

Friday was our serious business day. We had the department overview presentation before walking over to the North Campus Research Complex (NCRC) for the rest of the festivities. NCRC was bought from Pfizer by the medical college but the engineering school rents some of the space. Most of the ChemE faculty and labs have moved to NCRC. It’s a nice building.

We had a poster presentation and lunch followed by the faculty meetings, then we got a short break at the hotel before dinner. All fifty of the prospective students, plus current grad students, plus professors, were hosted at the house of one of the professors. We had a catered dinner (with open bar) and I talked to more of the grad students. After dinner options included returning to the hotel (tempting, but boring), a bar crawl (also tempting, but I would probably have passed out after approximately one bar), and bowling (which I went to).

I bowled a game that would have looked better on a golf scorecard before realizing that the line on the floor was too far back for my child-sized legs. Once I stood in front of the line to begin my approach, I immediately bowled strikes for the rest of the game slightly fewer gutterballs. We got back to the hotel after midnight but I got up early the next day for ice skating, because I couldn’t give up the opportunity to skate at Yost Ice Arena. Fun fact: according to Wikipedia, a weekend series against Cornell in 1991 holds the record for largest crowd in Yost.

Ice skating at Yost

I continued my athletic prowess by falling all over the ice. I did, however, avoid giving myself any blisters. We returned to the hotel for brunch, which was followed by a driving tour, whirlyball, and a grad student panel. Our last events for the weekend were dinner in smaller groups with a few professors and grad students, then a house party. By the time we made it to the house party, everyone was pretty tired, including the grad students. We were driven to the house party, I had an unknown quantity of the punch, then one of the students said she would be leaving to drive people back to the hotel. A few of us moved toward the foyer to leave, where we were met by another student who was thrilled to discover that two cars were needed and he could leave too.

Back at the hotel, I packed for the following morning, when I would, once again, be at the airport for an early morning flight. At 4:30 am the next day, I met with the other unfortunate students who were leaving Ann Arbor before sunrise. Unlike in Ithaca, there was already a line, though not a very long one, for security. I got through pretty quickly, then settled down at my gate to write a memo for senior design. That’s ChemE life for you.

Like the previous week, the flights home went smoothly. I got to Philadelphia with more than an hour before my connecting flight, so I thought I’d take my time getting to my next gate. About five minutes later, coming out of the end of terminal A, I noticed a set of doors to my right leading to a convenient shuttle to terminal F, where I was headed. Another sign warned me that terminal F was a fifteen minute walk. I chose to walk since I had time, plus I’d just been sitting for an hour. Well, the sign wasn’t wrong. The Philadelphia airport is shaped kind of like a giant insect. I had landed by the tail; my next plane was taking off from the tip of the antenna.

When I made it to the end of terminal F, I found out why I was taking off from there. I was surrounded by people going to places like Bangor, Buffalo, and Sheboygan – other small-ish towns more or less in the middle of nowhere. Our small fleet of turboprop planes was relegated to this end of the airport, probably so they wouldn’t accidentally get run over by a 747. I met another Cornell ChemE (it was peak grad school visiting time). We flew back to Ithaca, took the TCAT back to Cornell, and I promptly began studying for my wines prelim and finalizing process conditions for design.

*Note that all the aircraft I rode were much too small to be Boeing 747s. I did get to fly on the trusty DeHavilland Dash 8 turboprop again though.

Wined and Dined

When I last left off, I had finally arrived in Pittsburgh after my seven-hour flying ordeal jaunt through the stratosphere. It was now about noon, six and a half hours before our first scheduled event. I stayed in the hotel for awhile, then decided I didn’t have four more hours of internet surfing in me and went outside to explore.

I passed by, among other things, a large dinosaur and Carnegie Mellon itself before arriving at Schenley Park. Schenley Park is a park named after Mary Schenley. There are jogging paths, trails, creek-ish bits, bridges, lots of trees, and no cars. Some of the many bridges were constructed by the Works Progress Administration in 1939. I determined this using my extensive US History II knowledge and analysis of a rock sample (or see picture below). I wandered around for awhile enjoying the low people to trees ratio, then headed back toward Carnegie Mellon and the hotel.

Back at the hotel, I caught up on email and the latest happenings regarding senior design, then promptly fell asleep. When I woke up, it was 6:30, ten minutes after the meet and greet in the hotel lobby and time for dinner. I stumbled, drunk-like, into the hotel restaurant and proceeded to get more drunk-like on a glass of unremarkable chardonnay (the cake for dessert was good through). We met our fellow visiting students and some of the grad students and professors, then sat through a presentation on Why Pittsburgh is a Great City.

The next morning, we had more presentations about ChemE at Carnegie Mellon and each of the research areas, which lasted for over three hours. After lunch and a poster session, we were brought to the ChemE building for lab tours and faculty meetings. As the story goes, the ChemE building was built with its floors slanting so that in case the school didn’t work out, the building could be converted into a factory, with the uneven floors allowing gravity to transport materials. In any case, the school did work out, so the ChemEs occupy one giant ramp.

Panther Hollow Run in Schenley Park (I think)

Before the faculty meetings, we were shown the labs. The interesting thing about the lab space at Carnegie Mellon is that it’s divided up not by professor but by research area. Each research area has a large shared lab space and each grad student has bench space, but the major equipment is communal.

Next was one of the main events of our trip: professor meetings. Five of them, in a row. We met professors, heard about research, talked about our experiences and interests, asked questions, and generally tried to seem intelligent. It was a good experience, if a slightly exhausting one. Dinner was served at PNC Park, and while the Pirates are an inferior team to a certain other Boston team named after colored footwear, it was pretty cool to be in a Major League Ballpark. The actual food, however, bizarrely consisted entirely of different kinds of pasta. While my cooking repertoire consists almost entirely of variations on pasta, I would have expected something more from a catered event.

View of the city from Carnegie Mellon

Following the PNC Park pasta-fest, we were taken bowling, but I left before things got too crazy. The next day we had breakfast, a trolley tour, then I explored the Cathedral of Learning with some of the other prospective students before being driven to the airport. The plane rides back to Ithaca were downright uneventful compared to what I had experienced two days prior. I made it back to Ithaca by 11 that night, got picked up by my roommate, and prepared for three days of classes before I would be travelling again.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Well, it was a turboprop engine plane. And we were trying to leave. Ithaca was just getting in the way, as usual. I normally have no need to fly out of Ithaca’s one-building, three-gate airport, since flying home takes more time and is more expensive than bussing or driving. In this case, however, I wasn’t going home. I was headed to Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon for my first grad school visit. It was also my first time flying by myself.

Due to the wide array of flights leaving Ithaca’s airport (all eight of them per day), I had been booked for a 6 am flight to Newark. After a one hour, twenty minute layover, I would proceed to Pittsburgh, hopefully arriving at 10:22 am. Spoiler alert: I didn’t.

The morning started fine enough. I got up at 4 in the morning after three hours or so of sleep thanks to good life choices, had breakfast, and took a cab to the airport, arriving before 5. Since I hadn’t flown alone or been to the Ithaca airport before, I wanted to get to the airport early to make sure I didn’t get lost or anything. You’d have to try pretty hard to get lost in the Ithaca airport. Once you get through security, you can see all the gates at the same time.

Security took approximately two minutes, then I sat down to wait for my flight to board. Meanwhile, the flight to Philly was cutting weight so they could fly in the marginal weather – it was early March with the temperature right around freezing, with some nice sleet/rain/snow coming down. Half of the twenty plus passengers were being left behind in Ithaca. Fortunately, for whatever reason (larger plane, leaving fifteen minutes later, not carrying rocks in the cargo bay, don’t ask me), my flight was leaving at full capacity. Unfortunately, at the time we were scheduled to take off we were still sitting inside the airport.

When we boarded, the first thing we noticed was that it was quite possibly colder inside the airplane than outside. We had apparently lost out on the coin toss for the airport’s single plane heater. While we waited for the airport’s single deicer, our friendly air steward informed us that the earlier delay was to wait for the airplane computers to warm up enough to work. Thanks, Ithaca.

Fifteen minutes before we were supposed to have arrived in Newark, we took off from Ithaca. The flight went smoothly, and forty-five minutes after taking off, we landed in Newark around 8. Great, I thought. I still had almost an hour to catch my connecting flight. Then I looked out the window and couldn’t see the airport. For the next fifteen minutes, we taxied in circles before we were dropped off in the middle of nowhere where we would be picked up by a bus to be driven to the airport terminal. For the fifteen minutes after that, I waited on the bus while the rest of the flight collected checked luggage. We finally got everyone on board the bus and were about to drive off when a very helpful passenger yelled, “Wait! Is that someone’s suitcase?” and pointed out the window at a large yellow suitcase sitting forlornly between the plane and the bus. “Yes!” another very relieved passenger yelled, running to collect the suitcase. At least she was running.

By this time, it was nearing 8:30 and I was running out of hope that a “Your flight has been delayed” message would magically appear on my phone. We drove in circles across the same concrete we had just taxied across and were about to drive through a tunnel between two buildings when we were cut off by a luggage truck. Trailing about nine thousand luggage carts behind it. After that passed, we finally reached our drop off point and I took off.

It was 8:36. My next flight was supposed to take off at 8:53, which meant that boarding technically ended at 8:38. At 8:38, I walked up to Gate 16. The sign behind the gate very helpfully informed me that the flight to Texas, or Hawaii, or somewhere that was not Pittsburgh was Now Boarding. I looked down at my boarding pass. My flight was at Gate 18. Two gates down, the boarding area was empty. But. The ticket agent was still there. At 8:39, she let me and a few others making the same connecting flight board.

And then we sat there for an hour getting deiced and taxiing in circles. After my first flight of the morning, I was just glad to be sitting there at all. We touched down in Pittsburgh at 10:40 am, and after another forty-five minute drive, we pulled up to the hotel, elapsed travelling time seven hours. Google maps tells me that without traffic, I could have made the entire drive from Ithaca in five hours and four minutes.