February Update

It feels like I haven’t posted an update in awhile! The last couple of weeks have been very exciting for me, though. They have been filled with great memories and wonderful news!

I just became a new member of Sigma Sigma Sigma Sorority, which I am very excited about! Ever since I got onto campus I knew that I eventually wanted to become a member of the Greek community on campus, and now my time has come. I cannot wait to start my journey in the sisterhood and to become lifelong friends with all of the wonderful women!

Kalina, Kealey, and I at a Recruitment Event

Kalina, Kealey, and I at a Recruitment Event

A group of us on Bid Day

A group of us on Bid Day

Kealey and I on Bid Day

Kealey and I on Bid Day

Bid Day

Bid Day with Tri Sigma!

Kalina, Kealey, and I

Kalina, Kealey, and I

Tri Sigma at our Chapter Retreat

Tri Sigma at our Chapter Retreat

In other news, I also just received notice that I was accepted into the ERAU Honors Program! The Honors Program offers students so many wonderful opportunities. Students are able to go to Honors Seminars with guest speakers, interact with other Honors Students, as well as conduct research. I am very eager to start my first Honors course next fall!

Over the President’s Day weekend I went to Disney World, yet again! I don’t think I will ever grow tired of it!! I spent Valentine’s Day in Epcot with my boyfriend: we went on all of the rides and walked around all of the countries in the World Showcase. The next day we toured around the Disney Resorts, went shopping at Downtown Disney, played mini golf, and ate beignets (to celebrate Mardi Gras)! It was very nice to take a weekend off to relax and have some fun.

The iconic Epcot ball

The iconic Epcot ball

Now that I’m back on campus, it’s back to my normal schedule! Homework, meetings, and events take up most of my time. However, I am looking forward to traveling to Savannah, Georgia this weekend with my fellow blogger, Kealey, for the Women’s Ambassador Program! Also, the Daytona 500 is this Sunday, so I am super excited to go to my first NASCAR race! I will tell you all about my weekend in my next post!

Until next time,

Lindsey

Fall Break Fun (Plus Everything Since)

I’m running out of creative ways to start these entries. Generic greetings are so boring…

My shiny Charizard, Deimos. Named after one of Mars’ moons 🙂

We left off last time right before fall break, so you’re probably dying to know what I did for that long, 4-day weekend. In short, I really didn’t do anything. I caught up on sleep, played Pokemon Y (I hatched a shiny charmander – if you know what that means, I know you’re jealous), watched some Breaking Bad, and took some time to just chill and forget about school. It was glorious, apart from being sick for most of the break. But thanks to my friends orange juice and NyQuil, I was able to bounce back pretty quickly.

My new bookshelf (well, CD/DVD/Spaceship shelf) from IKEA on the left, along with my new Gravity poster 😀

The only real exciting thing I did over the break was spend some time in Orlando on Saturday. After waking up at about noon, I read on Facebook that Buzz Aldrin was doing a book signing in Kissimmee at 1 PM – well it was 1 PM when I read that post! So I took the quickest shower of my life, hopped in my car, and booked it to Orlando. We called when we were at about downtown Orlando to see if it was still going on, and it wasn’t. 🙁 I was pretty bummed about that, especially because his book is about the future of space travel (i.e. Mars). So since we were in Orlando anyways, we spent the day at IKEA, ate some cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory, and ended the evening playing some games at Dave N Busters – and I won a telescope. 😀 I have yet to see anything interesting with it though, it’s probably worth about $20; but still.

The week after a break is never fun. Especially the first couple days when you haven’t really recovered the motivation you left behind. But somehow I found the strength to get back into school-mode. Which was good, because I had my EP 501 midterm – and boy, was that an experience. I don’t think I’ve ever studied so much for a test in my life. Grad classes are scary because you have one exam and one final, so if you mess up the midterm chances are that your grade is doomed. I managed to scrape out a 90, which I’m very proud of (I would have hung the exam on my fridge except that my professor doesn’t give them back). Not to brag, but I’m 6 for 6 on exams this semester, which means this is my best semester yet – including freshman year! I have two more exams this week, in Spaceflight Dynamics and Thermodynamics, so hopefully I’ll be able to maintain the streak… fingers crossed.

Spring semester schedule. i.e. “Death by Physics”

Spring semester registration is now upon us! At least for the honors students – that’s one of our perks: we get to register before everybody else. So that means first dibs on the good professors. (I think I might be obligated to say that every single professor at Embry-Riddle is one of the “good professors.”) Of course it doesn’t really matter for me; I think I mentioned last time that every single class I am taking next semester only has one option, so my schedule is essentially made for me. Oh well, less work required on my part. This was also the first semester since I switched majors that I’ve been able to register online without it throwing an error at me for one or more classes and having to go sort it out with records! And the timings seem to work out very nicely – it’s just the classes that are going to kill me!

The new building is almost done and it’s beautiful – and it’s all mine! And, y’know, the rest of the physics/human factors/business/etc. students and faculty.

I also mentioned last time about the new College of Arts and Sciences building. All of my classes will be in there, and the lab I work in…. I wonder if I can just live there too? I am giving the presentation about our new lab to the Board of Trustees on Friday, so you’ll hear about that in my next entry.

Speaking of presentations, this past weekend I was asked to be on a student panel at the open house – so, any prospective students reading this, if you were there you probably saw me. I felt pretty honored to have been asked, which is why I was willing to wake up so early to be there (I don’t even wake up that early for classes!) I got to tell my story about choosing Riddle (my first entry – if you haven’t read it) to a whole bunch of people, so it was pretty cool. Then I went home and went back to bed for a little bit before lending my evening to freshmen who wanted help planning out their spring semesters.

My boyfriend and I with Echosmith (we are the two in the middle – it might be hard to tell because the band is our age!) They were really flattered when I told them we were at the concert specifically to see them. I suppose as openers they don’t get that a lot.

On Sunday I got to go to another concert! We went to see the opener, Echosmith. I’m pretty sure I talked about them in my entry about Warped Tour – they are all siblings that are age 14-20. And they’re awesome. The downside about them being the opener, is that we missed most of their set! 🙁 Orlando had some carnival or something going on so a lot of the streets downtown were closed and we couldn’t figure out how to get to the venue. But we caught their last two songs, which were really good, and then got to chat with them a bit after they played – which is the upside of them being an opener. There were three other bands playing; the second was For the Foxes, who weren’t really my cup of tea, but one or two of their songs were pretty good. Then The Downtown Fiction played, who I’ve had on my iTunes library but never really listened to aside from just shuffling the whole library. But they did play one song of theirs that I really like, along with some other I recognized. I also got to meet them, and got them to sign an album for me. The headlining band was Tonight Alive, a band from Australia. They were awesome! It turned out to be a really fun show, especially since we just went to see the opener. I got a signed copy of Tonight Alive’s album too (so I now have 9 signed CDs in total, plus 2 signed vinyls).

There is another concert I want to go to this Saturday, In This Moment, but nobody will go with me so I suppose I’ll sit this one out and save the money. But I only say that because I’ve seen them before and they haven’t released any new music since then. It’s really awesome how many bands play Orlando – I’ve been to more concerts since starting school at Riddle than the rest of my life combined. And that’s not counting the ones freshman year I would have gone to had I had a car.

One of my Bitstrips from last night. Hehe.

I discovered this super entertaining Facebook app called Bitstrips, where you make a cartoon of yourself and can put yourself in little comics with cartoon versions of your friends. There are some really funny comic templates, and my Facebook friends are probably sick of me posting them, but I don’t care because I think they’re hilarious. Although my parents and aunts started making them too, and everybody knows that parents ruin anything cool on the internet.

I think that’s about it for my life nowadays. I haven’t made too much progress on my research, mostly because I’ve been spending a good chunk of my lab time working on the poster for the Board of Trustees presentation. I have to write a major research paper about software development processes for my SE 500 class, so I plan to get working on that soon… I haven’t written a paper in about a year so I’m actually kind of looking forward to it; writing is definitely one of my strong suits (and for some reason I decided to be a physicist.)

I believe I’ve mentioned this before, but with all the prospective students who might start reading this, I’ll say it again: Ask me questions! I’m happy to answer anything about ERAU, especially about the Engineering Physics program. Or, y’know, just send me fan-mail telling me how awesome I am. Email me at schroel2@my.erau.edu, or you can probably find me on Facebook pretty easily. I don’t bite 🙂

Until next time….

-Lynsey

October 3, 2010

A month has gone by already? It’s so unbelievable to think that just over 40 days ago, I was back home in California. I loved my life back home, don’t get me wrong, but it feels like this is where I belong. Last blog, I just introduced myself, so let me say a little about what’s been going on since I got here.

Move-in day was August 25th. Knowing how hectic things can be during this time, settling in was relatively a breeze! Anywho—I live in Adams Hall, 5th floor (i.e the penthouse). Honors program got me here. See, if you apply early enough (by the beginning of the Spring), you might get an invitation from Dr. Kain, the honors program coordinator, asking you to apply for the honors program. Not everyone gets it, but if you have enough AP/IB credits and a good SAT score, all you have to do is send in an essay and your resume, and hope for the best! For those of you who think that it’s more work (and therefore a waste of time), don’t fret!! Actually, we get many credits waived just for taking honors courses. For example, since I already had most of my general education credits out of the way from high school courses, the honors seminar replaced my Speech credit! Such a great feeling, especially since I’m not a very good public speaker. Did I mention the material perks too? Well, this year we all got free iPads. We thought it was a joke, too, until we opened our gift bags at the Honors Banquet the eve of move-in day. We also get priority registration for next semester, which is a great perk, considering freshmen are usually the last to pick.

Next big event was Orientation week. It was definitely a lot more pumped up than I would have thought. The highlight of the week was the O-team, who is in charge of easing us through all the activities and to-dos of the week. Saturday morning, I was sitting quietly in my room when I hear a mob of screaming maniacs coming down the hall. I open the door slowly to see who is outside, and a hand reaches in and drags me outside. We are paraded down to the elevators where packs of people are stuffed inside, and the O-team starts screaming ‘O, O, O, O’, which is their motto. Although I was a tad taken back at first, they took us to the ‘Food Dude’, who is a former “The Next Food Network Star” contestant, who taught us how to stay healthy while in college. Trust me it is a lot better than it sounds. We also had a quite humorous skit by our RAs (Residence Advisors) about safety, then a nice re-make of Deal or No Deal—aptly named Beat the Banker for copyright purposes. When it came time to say goodbye to my parents, I was glad I had a few friends with me.

The second week of school, the University Diversity Office set up a scavenger hunt for women only, where we had to run around the school for a good hour looking for clues. It was so tiring, but I got to meet my mentors. The program is called FIRST (Female Initiatives: Reaching Success Together), where Freshman girls in Engineering, Space Physics and Engineering Physics are set up with older girls, who will act as their mentors throughout the year.

Speaking of clubs, the Student Activities office organized an Activities Fair on Legacy Walk (between the school buildings), which showcased all of the possible ways to get involved around campus. As I walked down the path, I couldn’t believe how many things to do there are! I found clubs anywhere from Airsoft to several different cultural groups, to a club for gamers to even a Civil Air Patrol! I guess it does make up for our lack of a football team…. Come on, how many schools can say they have their own air acrobatics team?? Or a skydiving club?? Like many would say around here, ‘Only at Riddle’.

I joined a few clubs (a few too many some would say). Right now, I’m sticking with only a few: Touch N Go Productions (they’re amazing. They are in charge of organizing all the activities. Check them out @touch-n-go.org), the women’s Baja team (which is the only all-women’s mini-Baja team in the world!), and, of course, the FIRST program.

Two weeks ago, when I wrote my first journal, was my birthday. I was feeling very down, since I wouldn’t get to spend my 18th birthday with my family. However, at exactly midnight, my roommate Bharvi and the rest of my good friends threw me a surprise birthday party in my room. I can honestly say that I’ve never been more grateful to someone before. Later that day, we went to my friend’s grandmother’s vacation home, where they baked me a cake and had a Pixar movie night just for me (I absolutely love anything Disney and Pixar). A great tip, which came up on the Facebook c/o 2015 page, was to meet people before you get to college. Embry-Riddle has two open houses in October and April. This is a fantastic way to meet up with the people who will potentially be your best friends in college.

When it comes to the academics, college is much simpler than I would have thought. Most teachers make us have a schedule to manage our time and so far, it’s worked like a charm. I got through 3 tests for far, and right now, my team and I are working on a satellite for EGR-101 (which is an introduction to engineering). What amazes me the most is that at this school is that most teachers use airplanes or rockets when explaining concepts. In physics, for example, half of our problems deal with an alien and a rocket ship. Again, only at Riddle.

Before closing for now, I would like to send out sincere congratulations to the Navy Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) freshmen on their graduation this week. They are now midshipmen, and a step closer to becoming officers! They work very hard (Physical training 5 days/week, 10 hours tutoring mandatory/week) and deserve our thank you for serving our country.

I’m all done for this week! Remember you can always e-mail/contact me on facebook if you have any questions.

November 2009

It’s officially been two weeks since I returned from fall break! So far school’s been pretty much the same. I took three tests since I’ve been back. One in Private Pilot Operations (AS 121) which I got a 90% on. I’ve already taken Private Ground course when I was doing my flight training back at Caldwell, so that course is mostly a review for me. I took a test in Instrument Pilot Operations (AS 221), which was on reading IFR charts and approach plates, of which I got a 93%. I also took a test in Math (MA112), which required me to spend a little more time studying, due to my lack of understanding the course material. However, I felt that the test was fair-to-easy, so I’m hoping I did well on it. I also have an upcoming research project for Aeronautical Science Success on the Honors Program here at Embry-Riddle. So to tie it all together, it was just an average two weeks of college. However, a lot of events are coming up for Homecoming Week, which I’m excited for because it’s my freshman year. What I find interesting about it is that we don’t have a football team.

As far as flight is concerned, I flew twice (Oct 21st & 23rd) on the week that I returned to campus from Fall Break. Surprisingly after that, I did not have flight for ten days. This is because my flight instructor was moved from the morning shift to the evening shift and with my classes being in the evening, I was unable to receive a flight block with him. But finally, I was paired with an instructor who is more than familiar with my situation, as he himself came to ERAU with only flight hours and finished up his license in just about the same amount of hours as I. Having to transition to a new instructor so late in the game is a little odd I think, but I’ve been credited two flights and an oral, as a result. It seems that my new instructor and I get along great and think alike as well. I’m hoping all goes well from this point on, I know this private pilot’s license is just being dragged out beyond belief, but I’m keeping a positive outlook about it and am using it all as a learning experience.

My message to all you prospective students is to take a flight to two while back home at your local airport to see if you like flying and if you wish to pursue it. Then come to Embry-Riddle and learn how to fly correctly the first time around. There are flight schools out there that have very good programs, I myself went to a school with a very good program. However, ERAU likes to take what is required and bump it up a notch or two. In the long-run, you will be able to complete your training in less time, and be a much more precise and safer pilot in the end.

AlanOutside of school, I went to a Volvospeed Car Meet at IKEA of Orlando on November 1st with a friend of mine from here. At the meet were of course Volvos and also there were some VWs, Mercs, BMWs and even a Citroen. I had a lot of fun checking out the cars and I even won a raffle prize of leather conditioner/cleaner. Since the meet was held at an IKEA we all had lunch there and I also got to do some shopping for the dorm. Both IKEA and Bed, Bath & Beyond are the two stores I swear by and I highly recommend them both for almost all your college dorm needs.

Over and Out.