Hello again!
It’s the time of the semester to register for spring classes, and one of the great perks of being in the Honors Program here is priority registration. Especially since registration is a somewhat complicated process with seeing your advisor, writing your four year plan, and making sure you will pass all your current courses, it feels good to get it all out of the way early. I am excited that next semester I will be starting courses for my Meteorology minor!
The end of the month is always busy because it is normally where the due dates fall for projects and exams. I have been studying away, but there is always time for fun. Recently I’ve caved into a floor-wide fascination with Pokémon. Somehow all of your childhood obsessions that seemed lame in middle school and high school come back to you in college as super cool.
As far as classwork goes however, I’m doing a lot of group work on final projects for several different classes. In our EGR101 class, we are still working on our project for American Home Health care. We made the initial design for our sock device, and now we’ve started our prototypes. That means working in the lab… with power tools! We found out that our group will actually get to present the project to the organization after Thanksgiving break.
I’ve also been working on one of my final projects for Graphic Communications, which is the airplane design project. I am learning so much about CATIA through this project, because the design has to be complicated, but I’m proud of where the final product is going! Even though I’m a mechanical engineer, I still like airplanes, and this school has certainly done a lot to enhance that fascination.
As you’ve probably heard from the news, Hurricane Sandy hit the US in the past couple weeks. Although the northeast got the worst of the storm, the campus was distraught for several days when temperatures dropped down into the upper 40s and 50s. It was normal Ohio fall temperatures for me, but it’s definitely not quite as easy to handle when you’re used to walking outside to 80 degree weather. There were people bundled in winter coats, hats and scarves! Luckily the sun is back out and the weather is back to normal. We’ve actually had clear skies for several days!
In terms of off campus entertainment this week, our RA, Brenna took our wing to Hard Knocks, which is a laser tag arena based on real combat environments. It was really fun, and I liked the change from the stereotypical laser tag arena. We also spent a Saturday afternoon volunteering at the Walk for Autism Speaks.
Getting ready for a mission at Hard Knocks. Lastly, Halloween was this past week, and although I didn’t get to go trick-or-treating, I did get to dress up to go to my ERRSA meeting. The girls helped me put together a costume we did hair and makeup. I used clothes and things I found around my dorm and ended up as a Queen Bee. Everyone in ERRSA dressed up and we did a costume contest.
ERRSA members dressed for the costume contest. Only a few weeks until the end of the semester… see ya!
This weekend also brought TEDxEmbryRiddle to campus, where distinguished speakers talked about their research and life experiences. The theme was “Powering our Future,” which really intrigued me. I’ve watched TED talks online before, so it was awesome to actually be a part of a conference!
One of the things that I was really looking forward to as a college student was all the free events. This week is homecoming week, and I am looking forward to all the fun activities. Jim Gaffigan is coming to campus, and Touch-N-Go productions brought in We the Kings for a concert on Sunday evening.
Fast forward to the present day, I just finished up my fourth week of classes. I have been at Embry-Riddle for a month and can’t believe time has gone by so quickly. My major is Aeronautical Science, which is the degree program to become a professional pilot. Currently, I am working on obtaining my Private Pilot license. A lot of class time is spent in the air, and in my opinion is the best classroom in the world! I currently live in Doolittle Hall, one of the four freshman dorms. I also became a member of two clubs on campus and also part of an intramural flag football team. Our first game was earlier this week, and unfortunately we came up a little short in getting the win. Since the team is comprised mostly of freshman, we didn’t know all of the rules to flag football and penalties got the best of us.
This weekend, I will be attending an airshow at Cocoa Beach with the Sport Aviation Club. I will talk about it in my next blog entry. I also have a model airplane under construction in my dorm that I hopefully will be able to fly by the next blog entry as well.
If you have any questions, feel free to 
We all know that there is a lack of females on the Embry-Riddle campus, but it leads the girls who are here to become great friends. I’ve grown incredibly close to my roommate, Blair, and suitemates, Clare and Maggie, and we get plenty of girl time with dinners out and pedicures (sometimes the guys even join in). There are so many clubs to be involved with and new people to meet that I am never bored! I have always liked to be involved, so I joined “The Flock” spirit club, volunteer my computer graphics skill to The Avion student newspaper and am a Hall Representative for the Embry-Riddle Resident Student Association.
Also, most of the time the weather is warm, but beware of pop-up showers in the afternoon! Carry an umbrella on you at all times. Regardless, the cloud patterns are magnificent. I love looking out my window and seeing the lightning and clouds for miles and miles. It only affirms my goal to get a minor in meteorology!
