Stevens Admissions: Ellyn's Blog

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Well... grades are in and I've been home for a little less than a week.

What have I accomplished since being home?
... not much except making up for sleep I didn't get during the semester and enjoying some home-cooked food.

I also played in a field hockey tournament yesterday in Pennsylvania. Let me tell you that we are spoiled at school, because I (for one) don't realize how lucky we are that we don't have to drive anywhere.  Public transit is at our fingertips where weather is not an issue. My sister and I had to drive in the pouring rain and try to navigate along the windy and flooded roads.

Anyways, other than that I have no really big new news. Below is one of my current favorite songs. Fun fact, I downloaded this song for free over the summer on iTunes from their Free Music Tuesdays promo before it got really popular!

Taking a break from studying...

Hello readers.  I am using writing this blog to take a break from studying.  Since Friday, I have practically locked myself in the library to focus to work on projects and study for finals.

First, let me show you what I saw as I was walking back from classes last week! :)
The sign below is hung on Walker Gym, so it is ideal to view as people are walking back from classes! Every time I walk by, it makes me proud and happy all over again to have won the conference again.
Last year a sign similar to this one was on the Howe building and this year it has changed locations.
Signs congratulating the men's soccer team and women's volleyball team are hung outside Schaefer Gym.

 

And here, just for fun is a picture of the plaque we got.

Next, members from my sorority's fall new member class got initiated recently.  I was lucky enough to get a "Little". She just so happens to be like half a foot taller than me... but I am still her Big Sister in the sorority lol.
After initiation, the new members are finally allowed to wear the sorority's Greek letters. Big sisters usually buy a t-shirt or other apparel / bags with the letters on it. Me (being adventurous) decided I would take a try at making the letters from scratch. Let me tell you, it is VERY hard and time consuming.  It is an experience I am happy to say that I have done, but I'm not sure when is the next time I am going to be making letters!  It took a long time to try and learn and get the gist of making it, but, in the end, I think it came out really well!
I picked out the patterns, t-shirts, and sewed everything myself (with help from some of my sorority sisters of course!... and a sewing machine)

As you'll notice, the pattern in the back is brown with an assortment of different colored dots.
The front pattern is pink with monkeys and bananas.

 
I made two t-shirts with the same pattern (just different colored shirts).  I figured it'd be something cute that only my Little Sister and I have.

OK, I'm getting back to studying. I'll blog again soon... when I'm hopefully less stressed!

Economics

Let me tell you, I know that engineering is for me!

I opted to take macroeconomics and microeconomics as my upper level humanities courses needed to graduate.  I had two awesome teachers, and the classes were interesting.
Microeconomics examines the behavior of individual firms and households, while macroeconomics examines the decisions that the economy makes as a whole.

Let's just say that these business-type classes are totally different than engineering. It made the classes very challenging to understand. The material wasn't unbearable, it was just the fact that it made me adjust to a different style of thinking.  I was used to very science related classes, but these economics had very few formulas and required lots of thinking (not that engineers don't think... a different kind of thinking).

Random website of the day!...

http://www.mysterygoogle.com/
I'm not exactly sure how it works. All I know is that you type in a search and it brings up a random search completely different than what you put in. It's a good time waster if you're bored.

A Taste of Systems Engineering

Tonight I am giving a presentation for SYS 650. SYS 650 is a graduate class called "System Architecture and Design".  Ideally, it is the second class in the sequence of obtaining a graduate degree in Systems Engineering at Stevens, but it is actually the third class I've taken so far.
http://sse.stevens.edu/academics/course-catalog/code/sdoe650/

The class is the backbone of the Systems Engineering program.  SYS 625 (which, if you remember I took over the summer, called "The Fundamentals of Systems Engineering") and SYS 650 provide a backbone of the degree here at Stevens.

Anyways, the class culminates into this final project.  We documented and modeled a system in a computer program called "Core" made by a company called Vitech.  It is one of the many programs used by Systems Engineers to diagram a system and see how the different parts are related.

Attached is a few pictures from the Vitech's website. It'll give you a taste of what I've been doing for the project and the types of diagrams I've been making.

 

http://www.vitechcorp.com/products/index.html

California

As mentioned in my previous post, I went to California (Palm Springs) during Thanksgiving Break!

The trip was a success.  The team played well in the tournament (and as I mentioned before, it's also important for the girls to strut their stuff, because this tournament is a fantastic way to get recruited by the college coaches).

Other than going to Argentina with the field hockey team 2 years ago, I have never been off the East Coast before!  It was really interesting to see the perceptions people have of New Jersey (haha) and see what life is like in another region of the US.  A fun fact was that we saw the Norwegian Junior National Alpine Ski team on our plane.  Our flight went from Newark to Washington DC to Denver to Palm Springs.  The flight to Denver had the team on it, because (I didn't know this) that weekend was the Junior World Cup for Alpine Skiing.

Not only was it abnormally warm for this time of year... compared to New Jersey that is... but even the trees were much different! AND we flew over the Grand Canyon on our way home, HOW COOL!

I had a great time and came back with a little of a tan... life is good!

 

(something you'll never see in Hoboken haha)