Tag Archives: open house

Open House 2023

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This is last Open House I’ll ever work!

Open House was this past weekend and as I’m graduating in the spring, it’ll be my last one! It’s one of my favorite events of the semester since I get to meet lots of new people (and collect some free stuff).

My day started off nice and early since the first organization I was representing, the aerospace engineering department, started working at 7:45 AM. Students (both undergraduate and graduate) were around with professors as department representatives, answering any questions that the families had for us. Here are a few of the most-asked questions (and their answers):

Are there a lot of hands-on experiences for students? Yes! As part of the AE curriculum we have to take experimental aerodynamics, controls, structures and materials laboratory classes. My favorite so far has been the experimental aerodynamics lab since a good part of your grade (and the class) relies on your DIY lab experiment where you create your own experiment. It has to pass safety testing and be approved just like a real experiment, too. For my group’s experiment we put a model 737 fuselage in the wind tunnel!

737 Fuselage loads testing!

What are the different tracks for? They are different specializations for your degree! I’m the astronautics (astro) track which means I’ll take different classes than someone in the aeronautics (aero) track. For example, I take Spacecraft Controls instead of Flight Dynamics and Control. The classes are a little more tailored towards your track for a more specialized degree.

What about internships and co-ops? How do you get one? Yes! I’ve had three internships (Summer 2020, Summer 2022, and Summer 2023) with three different companies (M3 Defense Consulting, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and The Boeing Company). I got each in a different way, but networking helps a lot- both with your professors, classmates, and company mentoring programs available to students. I would also suggest joining a professional organization and if possible, attending their conference!

After representing the aerospace engineering department, it was time for me to change shirts and represent my other organization: the Women’s Ambassadors! I walked over to the admissions building to get our stuff for tabling. We had pink ERAU tags, pink pens, and purple lanyards. We were tabling on the side of the student union next to the student government and ROTC tables, so we got a good amount of traffic.

Me, Lauren, and admissions staff member Ken!

At the Women’s Ambassadors table, I also got a lot of questions. This time, the questions focused more on the student experience as a whole rather than the aerospace engineering program as a whole. These were the top questions:

Do you like it here, and are you glad you came? Yes! I really do like ERAU and am glad I came to Riddle. It’s the perfect size for me- small enough so that professors will know you by name, but big enough so that you can still meet new people every week. I also like that you can hold leadership positions in multiple organizations!

What are the Women’s Ambassadors and what do you do? The Women’s Ambassadors were founded to increase the enrollment and retention rate of female students. We do this by working at admissions events (like Open House, accepted student dinners and regional admissions presentations) and mentoring freshman students. We also host events for female students on campus so that they have a sense of community. Our sister program, the Women’s Ambassador Mentoring Program, is run by a female professor on campus and has expanded to provide mentoring events too!

What is the campus social scene like? It really depends on what you make of it. If you don’t want a social life, sit in your dorm all day and you won’t really be bothered. If you do want a social life, you have to get out there and make it- join clubs and make friends in your classes. Campus life is definitely what you make of it.

My last Open House was a lot of fun. I love working at these events and meeting new people, but I’m also excited to graduate and move into the next chapter of my life. Attending ERAU definitely helped me get to where I’m going. If you’re thinking about coming to ERAU, definitely apply and attend Open House and Preview Day if you can! Hopefully I’ll see you there… if not I’ll see you in the next post!

Things To See on an ERAU Campus Visit

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Hi all!

It is fall break and I am currently in Alabama visiting Chris. This last fall break of mine, I find myself looking back on other fall breaks. Particularly, the one in high school when I came to tour Riddle. This got me thinking that there were things I wish I knew to go see or ask on my tour. Here they are:

To begin, let’s talk about things to see/do on campus…

  1. I wish I had sat in on a class. I did this at Preview Day in the spring, but I think if you are pondering which major to do, try to arrange to sit in on a class. Try to ask before arriving so Admissions can do their best to get you in!
  2. Join a flight! Many people do not know this, but if you are considering pursuing a flight major, try to observe a flight. Weather or aircraft availability may prevent you from being able to take an observer flight, but if you can, you will get a taste for how prestigious our program is and also have a blast with the scenic views. Dress code for observing flights requires long pants and closed toe shoes. Come dressed appropriately and ask about an observer flight when you visit campus!
  3. Try the food. I think many people don’t think to do this, but it gives you a taste of your future. I recommend Qdoba, our newest addition, or Propellers, a classic. Join a lunch table (they are set up as communal) and talk to students! They are happy to share their experiences and recommendations! What better way to know the university than talking to the people who eat, play, study, and even sleep there!
  4. Take pictures on the residence hall tours! This is BEYOND helpful when you are planning for move in. I wish I had done this, but you can go visit my packing list blog for some pictures as well in case you forget.
  5. Stop by financial aid if you’ve already been accepted and your FAFSA has been filed and reviewed. Your Admissions Counselor can help with general questions before your aid has been processed. If you have questions, they can help answer them. This saves you back-and-forth emails. I’m old-fashion though, I prefer face-to-face communication, especially on confusing, important matters.
  6. When planning a time to come, try to attend Open House (next weekend) or Preview Day in the spring. Open House welcomes to all prospective students and their families while Preview Day is only for accepted students and their families. These events make touring residence halls, attending classes, and observing flights a lot easier. What I like best though, is that there are opportunities to meet and learn about campus activities and organizations. There are typically general information sessions as well. And if you’re wondering the best time of year to visit, I prefer the fall. It’s not too hot out and that’s nice considering the tour requires walking outside. Ultimately, my best tip is try to come when there are students on campus. I came on my school breaks and they happened to line up with Riddle’s breaks. Therefore my perception of the campus was that it was always empty – which is completely false. I think it’s best to see the bustling campus because that is the most realistic image, in my opinion.

While you are in Daytona, I highly recommend Tia Cori’s Tacos or Rosie’s on Beach Street for some good eats. Chicken Salad Chick is also one of my favorites, with their wide array of chicken salads (it sounds weird but it’s delicious) and yummy grape salad! Touring the race track or hitting up the massive flea market are fun things to do. And if you’re like my family, Disney World and Universal Studios are only an hour away! If time allows, try to go 45 minutes north to see Saint Augustine – a real fun spot to spend your afternoon!

If you have any questions – write a comment! I’ll get back to you! ~ Maddie

Fall Break Fun (Plus Everything Since)

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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