As a sophomore studying Mechanical Engineering, my days were often packed this last school year. This past term, in particular, was the busiest yet. Join me as I take you through what a typical day looked like this past term!
On a typical day, close to our Me14 competition (which is the design and fabrication class all mechanical engineering students take and also my favorite class so far), my days would often start early, at around 8am in the engineering shop. At this point we were in the assembly stage of our transmission project, which meant it was a few hours in the shop type of day rather than a full day as it has been many days previously. This was the first class where we designed and machined our own project, so machining took us quite a while and we even had to nearly completely restart at some point. That’s engineering for you!
After shop, I would usually stop by Browne before my next class with my team and have some lunch. On Wednesday my favorite lunch is served, Thai Coconut Curry, so I always made sure to make it to Browne on that day.
Afternoons are usually packed with classes. In this case I had Me12c, which is Mechanics and the third of the series. We were approaching finals around this time, so we had a final review of the what the course had been with the graduate student teaching assistant. Most, if not all, of my classes have made sure to host a final review of some sort. Me12c was usually followed by Me14 lecture. However, since at this point we were in the building phase, Professor Mello often cancelled class to ensure that we had more shop time to complete our transmission (it was a relief from 3 hours of lecture back to back).
After class, I often went upstairs and found a collaboration room with either a chalkboard or whiteboard to work on sets with groups of people. Collaboration was crucial, especially when the workload felt often overwhelming. However, I learned a lot more than I expected, and I am excited to apply this knowledge to future classes such as Me72 (engineering design competition), which I am taking this upcoming term.
On days where I did not have immediate due dates and felt like I had quite a productive afternoon, my friends and I would decide to take a break with a short trip to YogurtLand. There is always enough time for YogurtLand, and it is my favorite off campus sweet treat, just around a 10 minute walk away. It is the best way to unwind and momentarily forget about sets.
By the time I would be back on campus, it would be time for dinner. Sometimes, I made time to go to house dinner, as they are short either way. House dinners are dinners waited by students hosted in each of the houses. Page House, which is the house I am a member of, hosts dinner at around 6:45pm. Dinner is always a quick chance to interact which members of my house and people outside my major, as it was especially easy this past term to spend all my time from morning until I went to be around people in my major and in the engineering building.
After a quick dinner and decompression, it’s usually time to head back to the collaboration room in the engineering building and keep working. To say that there were many late nights is an understatement. However, on evenings closer to finals week, we would end a little earlier than usual. On nights like this, I try to balance with some downtime which usually means grabbing Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream from Red Door and watching an episode of my favorite show How I Met Your Mother before catching some Zs.
