The road less traveled…

This week I’m in the process of applying for scholarships through Society of Women Engineers (SWE).  It’s probably no big deal for some people to fill out scholarship applications, but somewhere along the way to where I am now, I thought, “most scholarships are worth more trouble than it’s worth.”  I think this was more true when I was studying liberal arts, where you’re often required to submit long, thoughtful essays about a piece of literature or something that impacts society, blah blah blah, on top of a list of your “volunteer work” or other “extracurricular activities”—as if working full time while attending school full time and maintaining a decent GPA wasn’t enough!—and you’re competing with who knows how many other students.  Then of course, there’s the doubt that even after that, you’re still not “worth it.”

It’s an attitude I’ve been trying to change for a long time.  I’m still not entirely sure how to navigate applying for scholarships, especially with a less-than-exemplary GPA, but I’ve been working on changing my way of thinking about the scholarships, but perhaps a bit more importantly:  myself. As I was writing my scholarship essay (which asked why I want to be an engineer), I spent several minutes thinking critically of why I might deserve a scholarship any more than another person:  what makes me different from other students. But then I had a thought that changed how I approached the question.

In choosing to pursue an engineering degree, in investing in my education, I am also investing in myself.

It’s often said that our harshest critics are ourselves, and that’s absolutely true for me.  For a long time, it was difficult to see a future beyond my day-to-day job, and I think it was partly because I didn’t believe I had it in me to do it.  Choosing to leave the security of my day-job to return to school was an especially difficult decision when you consider the ever-increasing cost of tuition.  However, 5+ years in working in retail made me realize that I have so much more potential, and that investing in my education–myself–would be the best way to reach that potential.

Of course, that’s not what the essay prompt asked, but it was part of my thought process.  The actual question was both easier and more difficult. The short answer is, I want to make money in a job that challenges me and I like making things.  The real answer is much longer, and has changed and taken shape as I’ve gone through the experience of being an engineering student, and actually is tied very closely to why I became involved with SWE in the first place.

As I mentioned above, it was difficult to see a future for myself for a long time.  Aside from personal doubts, one thing I realized (after I chose engineering) is that women still represent a minority in STEM fields.  Without bringing politics into it, what this means for me is that I didn’t see myself pursuing an education in STEM because I didn’t see myself represented in STEM–I didn’t have a role model to look up to when I was younger.  I don’t want that to happen to other young girls, so I want to be that person that I didn’t see in my younger years.  I enjoy engineering, and I want young girls to see that they can enjoy it, as well.

Perhaps this post began with the discussion of scholarships, but what it’s truly about is self-growth.  When I first returned to university, I kept to myself and struggled to connect with my classmates. It had a little to do with the lack of self-confidence I discussed above, but it didn’t help that I was working full-time while trying to balance a full class load and readjust to attending school.  There’s so much I didn’t know–resources to use, people to lean on or build me up when in needed it.

But eventually I managed to fit in the time to become more involved.  By being involved with SWE, whatever my reasons, I have been able to connect with people that are like-minded, and who are going through many of the same trials that I have faced.  I’ve been able to connect with students in other organizations, through collaboration or shared spaces, and I’ve not only made wonderful friends, but have also been able to connect with my classmates to form study groups.

It may be a no-brainer to some people.  Of course you’re better off with making these connections, being involved, etc, but sometimes it’s easier said than done, and sometimes you need a little help to get there.

Someday, when I’m not balancing quite so much, I’d like to mentor young girls interested in an education in STEM.  I may not have taken a traditional path so far, but that just means I have more experiences to draw from. I’d like to do it now, truthfully, but I keep reminding myself not to overload myself.  If you read my previous post(s), you’ll know that my goal for this semester (or just in general) is to work on time management.  It was easier at the start of the semester–and it seems like just yesterday I was making my first blog post!–but it’s already time for the first round of midterms, and I have a quiz or exam or two every week now.  All of the ease of the first few weeks has given way to the pressure to do well on these. (As a side note related to fluids, this morning we discussed how a difference in pressure along an airfoil/plane wing causes lift–high pressure below and low pressure above–and I think as an optimistic person I ought to relate that to success, somehow.)

In any case–until then, I will have to satisfy my desire to be a mentor through SWE outreach and part-time work.  I have been tutoring at the local community college, which has been more rewarding than I initially expected, but this week I was offered a position as a TA on my campus, instead.  It’s not terribly different, because I’ll still be helping students, and it’ll be easier on me because I’ll have less commuting to do–and it’ll free me up to pick up ice skating lessons again, which is a huge win for self-care!  But it’s still a change, so wish me luck in readjusting my schedule!

As I wrap up this post, I want to stop and circle back to where I started:  the “volunteer work” and “extracurricular activities” that scholarships look for, that once seemed impossible to me, have become an integral part of my university experience.  Perhaps it’s a little ironic, but I think it may instead be more likely that I just hadn’t found the right thing for me yet. Maybe a straight path is faster, but I’ve learned a lot more by taking one less traveled.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” –Robert Frost (http://www.chicagonow.com/)

Don’t stop me now

In my last post, I talked about time management, and how it’s a weakness for me that I’ve been wanting to improve. One of the ways I said I was going to work on this was spreading my homework assignments out through the week, rather than doing them all in one shot (and often, last-minute). It’s not just time-management–it’s a good study habit, to keep the information fresh in my head as I revisit it throughout the week.

I’ve been keeping up with this particular goal for the most part, so far, and it’s paid off, especially this week! As it turns out, I’ve fallen victim to illness, as so often happens when one is surrounded by people. As we all know, it’s much harder to be productive when you’re ill, and it’s much harder to recover from being ill when you’re trying to be productive. Luckily, I already made headway in my assignments for the week, so that by the time I decided I needed to stay home and recuperate, I was more than halfway through the work. It meant I had less time I needed to dedicate to studying, and more time to dedicate to resting and recovering. I’m still not feeling great, but it certainly helped that I had some wiggle room with that. The last thing I have left before the weekend starts is this blog.

Dr. Ferrar gives us optional prompts to use for our blog posts, and while they’re just that–optional–sometimes it’s helpful to have a little direction when working on these things. Otherwise I might go off on some tangent that’s only partly related to fluid mechanics (we would call that a streamline in fluids: a family of curves instantaneously tangent to the velocity vector of a flow). In any case, this week’s prompt is to pick a topic we’ve discussed in class and find a real-world application for it, and how the concepts from class might have influenced its design and function.

Since I’m distracted by how much my nose is stopped up, I thought I’d take a look at dams.

The infamous Hoover Dam (photo from: https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/photos/10-americas-grandest-dams/dam-great )

The Hoover Dam is possibly the most well-known dams in the USA; a veritable feat of engineering. Of course there was so much more to consider in the design of Hoover Dam (and other dams) aside from the most basic fluid mechanics aspects–I’m not a civil engineer but I know enough about concrete to know that the concrete aspect alone was a challenge–but from the fluids side of things, I can better envision the whys of the dam’s design. We’ve been discussing fluid statics and Pascal’s Law recently, and with it all of the force reactions, and while it may seem obvious that pressure–and therefore force reactions–are greater as the depth of a fluid increases, due to the weight of the fluid above it, it may not be so obvious to make the connection between that information and the shape and design of a dam. But it’s there in the dam’s specs!

Aside from the curved shape of the dam that forces the concrete into compression, it is also much wider at the base than at the top: 660 ft at the base, compared to 45 ft at the top, according to Wikipedia. It makes sense, because the pressure and resultant forces near the top of the dam are much less than those at the bottom of the dam.

Of course, the Hoover Dam is just one of so many. As a Wisconsin native, I’ve heard the phrase “The Wisconsin River is the hardest working river in the nation,” so many times over that I can’t pick out any one source, but a quick internet search tells me that there are 26 hydroelectric along its 500-mile-long journey through the state (Wisconsin River Power Company). It’s a subject that makes me want to know more…but perhaps that’s something for another time.

Time is a construct…maybe.

The semester has just started, and like every semester before, I’m trying to stay wary of what’s to come—the semester tends to start out slow, and it can easily lull a student into a false sense of security.  You’re coasting along, and the next thing you know, it’s week five and you have deadlines and exams in every class, all at once. On top of that, you have other considerations: it’s going to be Engineers Week before we know it, and the Career Fair is just around the corner!

I’m not sure what my plans are for Engineers Week yet, and I’m lucky enough to already have an internship lined up, but it doesn’t hurt to drop by the Career Fair to work on approaching people to network and build those professional skills.  Whenever I have to approach someone in that kind of setting, I try to remember my favorite character from the Princess Bride:

It’s a meme, but that doesn’t make it any less relevant to understanding how to approach potential employers.  Or even just connecting to people through LinkedIn! Just remember to be courteous and professional.

But back to where I started:  I’m wary of what the semester has in store for me.  I know that time management in an academic setting has always been a weakness for me.  I’m a returning student, and while I have been back in school long enough to be aware of the expectations and lifestyle that comes with being a student, I still struggle to strike the right balance between school and work and home.  I’m hardly the only one with this issue, but there’s a huge difference between simply working and leaving your work at the job when you go home, and being a student, where homework is where most of your work needs to go—and that’s on top of the hours already put in inside the classroom.  This year has been particularly challenging for me, because it’s the first year I haven’t worked full time hours during the school year—which may sound like a load off, but I’ve found that it comes with its own set of challenges.

What kind of challenges?  As it turns out, I have a bad habit of overestimating how much I’m capable of doing, and as a result, end up overloading myself.  It’s less of a problem when my only commitment is to a job, but each class is like a job in itself, and each semester it takes me time to find a new balance.  Without having to dedicate as much time to going to work, my first response was, “I can take more classes!” It sounds good in theory, but again, I overestimated, and in my attempt to take on more classes, I ended up shooting myself in the foot.

My goal for this semester (and for all future semesters), therefore, is to work on time management to allow me to strike a balance without overloading myself.  It is doubly a personal and a professional goal–if I find that balance personally, I will improve both professionally and academically.

In order to achieve this goal, I want to start by becoming more aware of my current load:  what obligations and tasks do I currently have? How much time/energy does each one require?  What needs to be prioritized? Does any particular obligation or task give me more trouble than another?  Answering these questions will give me a time frame to take care of each obligation or task, and by prioritizing, I can begin tailoring a schedule for my current tasks, based on time, priority, and other considerations.

For example, these blog posts are fairly straightforward and easy, and although they take some time to reflect on and write them, I can do them on my phone while I’m on the bus or the train–one less thing I have to worry about when I sit down to work on homework.  Meanwhile, the problem set portion of the homework takes much longer, and requires more concentration–so I should plan to spread out the work over the course of an hour-to-two hour blocks through the week. Etc etc for other tasks, until I have a nice round schedule.

And then, the key thing for me:  will taking on another obligation/task be feasible?  My instinct at the start of the semester was to say yes, but after a couple weeks of class and reflecting over my time constraints, I have realized the answer is, probably not; at least, not without having adverse effects on the things I already have on my plate.

So, here goes!  I’ll work on improving managing my time, and share my results as the semester goes on.

Who is Melony Breeze?

“I am a Mechanical Engineering student…”

It’s true that this is probably the first thing I would tell an employer or professor, and it’s true that “Mechanical Engineering student” defines a significant portion of my life. But it is far from the whole of who I am, or even representative of the rest of my experiences. It’s hard to remember that when I’m neck-deep in homework and group projects and trying to study for my next exam. In fact, sometimes it’s hard to even remember why I’m here.

I like to consider myself a learner. I like learning new skills — I’ve taken up knitting and figure skating and I even tried to play violin for a bit — and I enjoy contemplating history and literature, and comparing the physics of Ant-Man to those of the reality we live in. I like building things, and I find space both terrifying and immensely intriguing.

It can be difficult to remember all these things that drove me to decide to be a “Mechanical Engineering student” when I’m busy being frustrated with trying to recall some bit of Calculus I learned two years ago.

I’m still learning how to balance the what and the why. It’s taken me longer than I care to admit. I’m 30 and I still sometimes need a firm reminder to not overload myself. It’s how I ended up in Fluids this spring (for which this blog is a requirement!), having only just missed the passing mark last semester. It’s a bummer, to say the least. Still, I didn’t made it this far to give up now, and even failure teaches us things (I’m sure plenty of engineering students can relate). Even the spaces in between, the time it takes to figure things out, is an opportunity to grow.

Sunset just means there’s a new day just around the corner!

So maybe I’m behind the curve in my education, compared to others. And I’m certainly not a model student. But the important thing is that I am here now, and that I am making the effort to keep learning, keep moving forward. When I say, “I am a Mechanical Engineering student,” I mean, “I want to find my full potential.” The finding isn’t the same for everyone, but for now, our paths are tangent.

Blogging as a part of that path is a way to enforce the lessons I learn and the discoveries I make along the way, and a course requirement is as good an excuse as any to start doing so. So, here goes!