Stevens Admissions: Cassandra

It continues...

Hello Again!

Tome for updates! Career fair went well, I’m just all over the place with what kind of jobs I am looking into. I’m also thinking of taking a couple months off to travel, and apply for jobs with a clear head. Its all currently up in the air, I just want to focus on school this semester so I get a stellar GPA. The past couple of weeks have been really busy with work, classes, and trying to see my friends in any spare moments that I have.

Other than school work, there have been a lot of really fun things going on campus. Last Thursday I went to see “The Nerds” perform on campus. They are a cover band, and the show was so much fun! Check out the website  : http://www.the-nerds.com/. Friday night I went home to volunteer at the Ukrainian Center that I used to go to as a child. My best friend from home and I have a group of 6 year old boys that we have to teach the Ukrainian culture, language and various arts and crafts every Friday night in preparation for huge competitions and festivals that take place Memorial Day weekend. This is the first year that I am volunteering at the center, and it feels nice to give back to the community that I was part of for so many years. The best part about it was that my friend Nadya picked me up fro the train station with her three puppies! Sandy, Riley, and Shots greeted me in the car when I came into the train station. They are so happy, and it brightened my busy day. Here is a photo of Shots and Riley!

The rest of the weekend was taken up with cleaning my ridiculously busy room, catching up on sleep, and doing homework. I have two midterms this week as well as my other weekly assignments, its going to be busy! I’ll be updating soon with how they went!

SENIOR YEAR!

WOW! So it’s been way too long since I last posted. Senior year is incredibly busy! I’ve been doing so much I barely have time to breathe. I am really enjoying myself though, and am both nervous and scared about my future. Right now, I am in the process of preparing myself for the Career Fair tomorrow being hosted on campus. A lot of companies are coming, taking a station in the gymnasium, and collect resumes and ask questions to pretty much the entire senior class. It’s a great opportunity to network ourselves, and the turnout is usually great. I just can’t stop the nerves though! My life after college is looming closer and closer and it’s just crazy to even think about! Other than my stress and excitement about the future, my classwork has been keeping me incredibly busy. This semester I am taking Senior Design, Engineering Physiology (plus lab), and the rest are all grad courses. They include Validation in the Pharmaceutical Industry, Regulation and Compliance in Pharmaceutical Industries, Modeling and Simulation and . The courses I am taking are really interested, as well as my Senior Design Project. I am actually going to be heading into NYC to visit my advisor this Thursday, and I am very excited to get a clinician input on this incredible project that I am working on.

 

It’s time for bed, so I can be well rested for the fair. My resumes are printed, my suit is pressed, and my questions for the companies are written. I will definitely update with how it went!!

Little Ukraine

Hope everyone is having a great Saturday! I am completely exhausted. This is probably because I had spent about five hours walking around the East Village in Manhattan. I decided to go visit St. Mark’s area, which is home to many Ukrainian shops, restaurants and museums. Dubbed the “Little Ukraine” of NYC, this little gem of the city is popular among both the Ukrainian and American communities. I am not sure if I had mentioned this in my previous posts, but I am Ukrainian, speak it fluently, and go to festivals all the time! I love my culture and was missing it recently, so I thought a visit to the Little Ukraine of New York City was needed. I decided to stop in today with my friend Nadya to get some pierogies (delicious!) to go and to purchase some Ukrainian clothing items. Although I live in Hoboken, and visit NYC at least once a week, my poor sense of direction still overrides the countless amounts of times that I have been to the city. After several wrong turns, we managed to find ourselves at the Surma store, which was filled with Ukrainian Books, music instruments, Ukrainian clothing, and even jams and candy. After that stop we walked around the Ukrainian Museum, some butcher shops (always an important stop for Ukrainians), and finally for dinner at the Ukrainian Heritage Restaurant in the city. We stopped by the bank, sports club, and Ukrainian home as well. We made sure to take pictures under the Taras Shevchenko streetsign (he was a famous Ukrainian poet), and brought some Ukrainian treats home for our friends. It was a very relaxing day, and I am happy that I chose to go on an adventure. Summer session 1 is almost over, so I have a couple of things to complete for my Systems class. My two web courses run all summer, but I am very excited to have Tuesday and Thursday nights off after this week! Tomorrow I have my cousin’s high school graduation party, and I will be sure to write about it! Until then, here are some photos from today. Enjoy!

 

 

Classes

Hello Again!

 

It has not been that long since I have blogged (last night), but I am waiting for a team member who ran into car trouble before I head into my research meeting, and figured it would be a good idea to make use of my time right now! I will try to write an entry about my summer courses, because I noticed that I have not really done that yet. This summer, like I mentioned, is a really busy one. I am taking three courses, Fundamentals of Systems Engineering, Introduction to Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, and Good Manufacturing Practice in Pharmaceutical Facilities Design. Two of them are online (The Pharmacy ones), and the Systems Engineering course is in class. I actually am in this course with Ellyn Griggs. Check out her blog! She wrote a great entry about our group project. We are in a group together, so we have meetings nearly every day that we are not in class. I am really enjoying the material that we have learned thus far. The basic tenants of Systems Engineering are really important for engineers of all sorts to know and understand in order to be successful. Identifying the needs and requirements of a particular stakeholder can probably make or break the company. Our group project actually involves applying all of the concepts that we have learned about in class towards determining how to revamp the SSE (School of Systems and Enterprises) website. It would be really cool if the web designers utilized our presentations to figure out how to redesign the web site!

My other two courses are a little different, because they are based in the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Industry. We learn a lot about the FDA and the requirements that they place on products being manufactured. These courses are on the web, and not in class. Taking web classes is interesting – there are no scheduled meetings, and it is up to me to make sure that I have completed my assignments and assessments for the week. I am still deciding if I prefer this form of school, as it allows me to work around my schedule to look at the material. The material is very interesting to me, as I really enjoy learning how things work and are made. One of my recent homework assignments provided us with a drug, its constituents and their properties. We needed to utilize this information to determine the correct steps in the manufacturing process, and machinery used in each of these steps. I actually really enjoyed completing this assignment, and when I take my daily vitamin I can not help but think about how it was manufactured! I guess this is one of the sure signs of a future engineer – always thinking about how things work!

Although this entry was mainly about school and my coursework, I would like to leave you all with a photo of a lake in Central Park. I went the other day with a friend, and I just love this photo. Hope you all enjoy it too!

Summer Continues...

Hello All!

Hope everyone is having a great beginning to the summer! It is a bit rainier than normal but fortunately it’s usually during the week. I do not really mind that because I spend most of my weekdays at work, in class, or doing research. My research is moving along great! Tomorrow morning I am going into the Biomedical Lab to finish separating my vertebra, labeling the pieces and scraping them so that we can hopefully begin testing next week. We had to design an indenter for the machine, and that took SO much reading to find the dimensions of the ball on the indenter. We do not want to ruin our samples so it’s a tricky process.

Besides research class and work, I have been trying to get out and see museums in New York City once a week. This past week I went to the Guggenheim with my friends Rebecca and Mary. The museum is really interesting – it has a lot of Frank Lloyd Wright’s drafts and sketches from his years as an architect. I had no idea he had so many ideas! Unfortunately, most of them were not even built, but it was really interesting to see all of his work. The other art pieces were really interesting also and I really enjoyed that the Guggenheim provides each visitor with a head set in which there are recordings for most art pieces that has a curator discussing the piece. It was a really relaxing day, and I am really happy that I went! After we came into Hoboken, we walked around the pier and town for a bit. My friend Mary had never been in Hoboken so I had a great time showing her my favorite places to eat, shop, and relax in town.

Unfortunately I have to wake up at 8 AM tomorrow to go into the lab, and this will be the end of this post. I will be writing soon about my upcoming plans for this weekend! Hopefully I go to my aunt’s lake house and get to kayak and hike for the weekend. That would be really relaxing.

I’ll be writing soon!

Cassie

PS. Heres a picture of us in the Guggenheim!

 

Summer!

WOW I would just like to point out how fast this summer is flying by. Between tour guiding, research, and classes, I feel like I barely have any free time! Of course, this is how I prefer my schedule to be – packed and productive! This summer I am living in my sorority house, where I will also be living during the next (my final) year at Stevens. I am taking three courses (Fundamentals of Systems Engineering, Good Manufacturing Practice in Pharmaceutical Facilities Design,  and Introduction to Pharmaceutical Manufacturing). These classes are graduate level, and I will be using them for my Masters Degree. Also, I am performing research on campus on two projects – the first involves Concussions and neurocognitive testing. We are pretty much trying to figure out how multiple concussions interfere with an individuals cognitive skills. The second project is called “Vertebral Endplate Mapping”, and it involves dissecting calve spine specimens and testing the maximum load that various angles of the spine can withstand. I am really excited about both of these research projects and we have started to undertake these within the past three weeks. On top of research and class, I am a Stevens tour guide and am continuing dog walking in the summer. Busy busy busy, but that is the way I like it. There are some days that I get a little bit stressed out, and those are when I chose to take weekend getaways or day trips into NYC. I took such a trip the other day with my friend Rebecca. We took a trip to the Bronx Zoo! It was so fun and relaxing. I used to work at a zoo when I was in high school, so I love visiting other ones. I love animals and want to hopefully one day have a farm with horses, dogs, sheep and cows. Below are some photos from the trip. It was so fun!

 

 

 

Well that's all for now, I will posting soon to talk more about other things that I have done so far!

Crepe Grill

Hey Everyone!

I am so excited that I only have one more final left – Imaging and Instrumentation and then I am DONE and officially a senior! It’s been a rough week, I had three other finals and a bioethics paper due. Of course, I am only off until Monday when I start summer classes, which is unfortunate, but it is the price to pay of a Stevens Scholar. I am excited for summertime regardless of the classes.

One of the perks of this week was the nice weather yesterday and today. Me and a couple of friends took advantage of it and took a walk over to the Crepe Grill right on

Sinatra Drive

to get some delicious crepes! The location of the grill is really beautiful, it is right on the water and the food was delicious. It was a really relaxing afternoon, and just what we needed during a stressful finals period. There is a beautiful pier near there as well, and I feel like this place is one of the gems of Hoboken

. Below are photos from the day, and evens artistic ones that my friend took! Hope you enjoy!

 

  

Ironically this picture was NOT Planned!

 

 

 

3oh!3

My apologies for having such a large gap between my blog entries. I will surely be writing a couple within the next few days updating you all on what has been going on in my life. School has been really hectic and I am happy I finally figured out my summer plans! They were in the air for some weeks and the deciding was really stressful. Thankfully I was able to sign up for summer classes and am doing research on campus, while working a few odd jobs to help pay my expenses I will incur. I am really excited about one of them – working at the  Hoboken Animal Hospital ! I love animals and have had plenty of jobs relating to them. I will surely update you with stories of my “patients” and the adventures that I cross during my time there.

Last week I was lucky enough to be able to go to concert. I love going to shows, and everyone I go is a great experience, no matter what type of music it is. This one in particular was the band 3oh!3, which has a hit song on the radio right now. Me and a couple of my friends started to like this song MONTHS ago, and when they finally became popular we decided we wanted to see them play live, because it is fun dancing music. Unbeknownst to me, the show that we purchased tickets for was three hours away. We decided to go anyway, and the road trip proved to be an adventure within itself. We finally got there right when the show was starting (perfect timing!). The show was amazing, there was so much dancing and jumping around. The only downside was how sweaty we got from the hoards of people trying to dance at the same time. It was a great time, and I do not regret going at all, I am just not sure if I can handle a show as intense as this again! Below are some photos from the night, as you can see we got really sweaty. It was extremely intense like I said, but one of the most fun experiences that I have had in a while.

The crowd. How cool is this picture?

The three of us at the show!

One of the opening bands - Family Force Five. They had a great show. 

 

That's all for tonight. I will update again tomorrow!

RIley

Hello!

 

This entry will be dedicated to my friend Nadya’s new puppy Riley! Riley is an adorable Puggle puppy. Several weeks ago, Nadya decided to buy a puppy to give Sandy (her lab) a friend. Riley was love at first site and Nadya ordered her immediately. There were actually some complications with receiving this puppy. Unfortunately, she was sick and there was delay in her arrival because of surgeries, but last weekend Riley finally boarded the flight to Newark airport and was greeted by her family. The first time I got to see Riley was Friday night, which was so much fun! She is so playful for such a young puppy and her and Sandy got along great. Sandy sometimes acts like a mother to the baby. It is really funny to watch the two interact.

Here are some photos of the new puppy. Isn’t she adorable?

 

This weekend I also helped my brother with his Senior Research in Genetics at Montclair State University. It was my first time on the campus so I wanted to walk around. He gave us a mini tour, and I was surprised at how large it was compared to Stevens! His research is really interesting, and I was glad to help him out. Here is a photo of me and my two brothers with our dog on a rest stop during our tour.

 

Now it is time for bed, I have a really busy week ahead of me! Thankfully there are going to be no more exams for about a week or two!

 

Good night!

Royal Pearl Ball

Hey Guys!

 

Sorry its been so long since my last entry, life has been really crazy this week with lab reports, tests, and meetings. Organic Chemistry is a very difficult class for me, and we had our second midterm on Thursday. Thus, I was studying most of the week as well ass trying to catch up on my other work. Enough about school though, I will write about what I did last weekend.

Last weekend was so much fun! Friday night I went to go see the Beauty in the Beast show on campus. The show was amazing. All of the actors and actresses were great in their roles, and the set design and costumes were great. The next day was my sorority’s ball, the Royal Pearl Ball. During the day I pretty much relaxed and got myself ready for dancing all night. We all went up to the point to take pictures before we loaded up on buses to drive to the hall where ball was taking place this year. When we got to the hall, we were greeted with mounds of delicious food. After dinner, it was just four hours of dancing! I love dancing and had so much fun with my friends out on the floor. I am pretty sure I did not stop dancing for the entire four hours. The next day my body really felt like I ran a marathon! It was so worth it though, ball night is one of my favorite nights of the year. The ball is a great time, because it honors all of our sisters for all of their efforts in academics, sports, and Greek Life. My sisterhood is so diverse and I love when we all get together for events like this and just let loose and have a great time. My big and two littles were both at the ball, which made me really happy. I love my family tree and our busy schedules don’t often let us all hang out together at the same time. The memories we make are unforgettable. I have posted some pictures below.

 Me, my big sister, and my two littles!

 

Me and Rebecca.

 

Me and my date at the point.

That's all for now, I will be sure to update you all on my Easter festivities! Ukrainian families have a lot of great traditions that we partake during Easter, and I can't wait to tell you about them!

Until next time,

Cassie