First Month Face Off: Tips to Survive the First Month of University

Ciao everyone!

Summer is quickly coming to a close and the start of the school year is around the corner. To help you navigate the strange (and sometimes choppy) waters of university life I made a list of tips to help you survive your first month at university. My friend Christen got a hold of my list and thought she had "better" tips to offer. So here are our top tips. Let us know whose tips are the best!
[Disclaimer: All advice to be taken at your own risk! ]

Christen & Danielle as they battle for the list of top tips.

Danielle’s Top Tips:

• Keep in contact with your high school friends.You will be meeting tons of new people during university (especially during Welcome Week), but don’t forget about the friends that stuck with you through high school.
• Get to bed early every night. “Beauty sleep” is more than an expression; it’s science.
• Stay hydrated. Just because summer is over doesn't mean that the warm weather has left! Septembers in Hamilton are known to be hot, so keep refilling that water bottle.
• Use your resources. Ask your professors for help and visit during office hours; sign up for the Ask an Undergraduate Engineer Program; use the Math Help Centre - dedicated to first year math courses; visit the Student Success Centre and the Student Wellness Centre to find out about the services they offer.
• Get involved. McMaster Students Union has hundreds of clubs and Mac Eng has over 15 clubs and teams for you to get involved with! Try some out and find one that fits you.
• Volunteer. Join the Mac Eng Outreach volunteer team! Send us an email at goeng1@mcmaster.ca and become one of our fantastic volunteers.

I've saved the best tip for last.

• Have fun! University has been the best experience of my life so far. Make sure you enjoy the ride.

Christen here. While those were some good tips, I have some sage-like advice for you. Listen, you will.

Danielle & Christen - they are actually friends

Christen’s Awesome Tips:

• Meet new people! The best part about university is it is full of thousands of new people. In that mix there is bound to be some that share your love of Shakespearean English.
• Caffeine is your friend. Those late night conversations about the meaning of life and what happened in the last episode of Game of Thrones are where the best friendships are built. 
• You can be whoever you want to be! None of these people know who you are, how ‘popular’ (or unpopular) you were in high school, or where you got that unsightly scar. This is your clean slate! Take it, don’t wait! Be the best you that you can be, because “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You”.
• Get off social media. (Except our blog because we are awesome people). “I’ll just check Facebook for a minute” always turns into several hours of surfing the information superhighway. There are so many other things you could be doing!
• Attend as many events as possible. Life isn’t too crazy during that first month so it’s a great opportunity to get out and see all the options available to you. Challenge yourself and try at least one thing that is outside your comfort zone.
• Find balance. With that said, once you have found some activities you want  to be involved in, make sure you take some time to sit down and prioritize!
• Learn! That’s what you came to school for! But don’t forget, not all learning happens in the classroom. Some of the most memorable lessons happen when you are open to learning outside of class time. 

Well, I hope you enjoyed our tips. (Christen, I still think my tips are better than yours!)

Until next time, 

Danielle

Danielle vs. Daniela: Spot the differences!

Ciao everyone! 

Mirror image? Or not?
[L to R: Daniela, Danielle]

My name is Danielle, I’m new to the Hear it from Her blog and just to help you out...no, I am not the same person as Daniela. You would not believe the number of people that get us mixed up. We don’t look that similar, do we?

As you can see from the photo on the left, we both have brown hair and eyes, glasses and our names can be easily confused. But there are some differences between the two of us in the second photo. 

Can you spot the differences between us now? 

So a little bit about me...

One of these things is not like the other...
[L to R: Daniela, Danielle]

Here at McMaster University, I am in my third year Materials Engineering and Society. But since all work and no play, is not very fun, I have many interests outside of my studies. The McMaster Engineering Society or "M.E.S." has a magazine which highlights the accomplishments of the engineering students and provides the reading with MacEng news. Why am I telling you this? Well, I am one of the co-editors of this publication, Frequency Magazine. I am also involved with the Material Science and Engineering Club as the secretary this year.

Outside of the world of engineering, I am a member of the McMaster Dance Club. In the little free time that I have, I love knitting. Right now I am knitting headbands to keep the ears of my friends and family warm. It’s so exciting to become a new member of this team of MacEng bloggers and to help you get a glimpse into being a woman in engineering! I hope you’ll welcome me by reading my posts and commenting when you want to share your thoughts.

Until next time... let's have a little fun with our Mac Eng Frogger!   ~ Danielle

Is it Just Me, or Has This Semester Been Flying By?

My adorable Gizmo!

Reading week is over, and although the week of relaxation and home cooking has come to an end, there is so much going on around campus you can’t be bored! My reading week was nothing exciting. I got to go home, visit my family, and play with my dog. Isn’t she cute?

But now that I’m back at McMaster, I have so much going on that I’m too excited to sleep! Its crunch time for the McMaster Engineering Musical, which has its first show in 2 weeks. I can’t believe it! I’ve been involved for a few years now, but this year not only am I performing and choreographing, but I’ve taken on the role of assistant director. (Read my post about last year's musical here.)

This year, our theme is “The Bounds of M(u)=Sic”, a parody of “The Sound of Music”. It tells the tale of Mary, an Arts and Science student, who doesn’t quite fit in with her faculty. She is convinced she should be in Engineering and decides to take an engineering course to see if that is where she belongs. Little does she know, the course is really difficult and all but 7 students have dropped it! Will Mary be able to help her fellow classmates pass?

McMaster Engineering Musical 2013

Sound like something you’d like to see? Well, it’s going to be an amazing show. If you live in the Hamilton area and are around on March 14, 15, or 16th you should definitely come out! The show is at 8:00 pm at Sir John A. Macdonald Secondary School, which is located at 130 York Blvd. You can get tickets at the door but we recommend you visit www.macengmusical.com and reserve some ahead of time.

Along with musical, it is also the time for the Engineering Welcome Week representative tryouts. The campus is buzzing with people showing how creative they are. If you’re on campus, stop by the John Hodgins Engineering building to see some of the shenanigans we can get up to!

Anyways, I should get back to my work. After all, I do have to get schoolwork done at some point during all this excitement!

Cheers! ~Genna

Interview: Tara on the McMaster Solar Car!

Hi everyone, sorry the last posting was delayed because of exams. I know I talk about school a lot in these posts – it’s kind of why I’m here at Mac! – but there is a lot that goes on outside of classes, too. My friend Tara (a graduating Engineering Physics student, on the right in the picture shown), for example, is really involved with the McMaster Solar Car Project – a team that works together to design and build cars powered only by solar energy, and race against other vehicles from around the world. She answers some questions about her work with them below:

1) When and how did you first get involved with the McMaster Solar Car team?
In mid-March of 2009, I became acquainted with some of the members of the Solar Car team through casual conversation. A few weeks later they mentioned that they planned on doing their theses on the electrical/electro-mechanical sections of the solar car. I found this topic very interesting, and accepted an offer to complete my thesis on this work. I enjoyed the experience of working on the car so much that I have never left the team since.

2) What is your role within the team, and why?
In May 2010 I became one of the managers of the electrical team, co-managing along with another member. I was selected for this role because of my experience with the team through my thesis, active participation throughout the following year, and my ability to direct and delegate. In the meanwhile, one of the projects I took on was initiating an encapsulation process for solar cells. We have a small scale process completed right not and plan to have the full scale process running before the end of this summer.

3) What is the most challenging part of your involvement?
As a manager, the most challenging aspect has been motivating super-busy volunteers to meet a set of deadlines while struggling with funding for projects.

4) How do you balance work on the car with coursework?
Ever since I joined the McMaster Solar Car project, I have found that I have gained more enthusiasm towards my course work and have become stronger at time management. Despite the Solar Car team consuming much of my time, it has made it easier for me to organize myself – perhaps because I have gained a different appreciation for time. The motivation comes from seeing direct application of subjects we have learned about in school, as well as working alongside a strong group of motivated students who are team players and willing to share their knowledge and experience.

Photo time!

So we had a snow day this week! On Wednesday, too, which was awesome and made it feel like a Sunday in the middle of the week. In Hamilton we got about 30 cm of snow overnight, which is unusal for the area.

However, snow day or not schoolwork goes on (I actually only missed two hours of class that day because I have so many self-directed courses this term) and this weekend is still pretty busy. I spent Saturday in the lab soldering up a circuit for my final year design project and working on an assignment for my solar cells class wtih a partner. Later this afternoon I'm performing with the McMaster Concert Band, so I'm just going to keep it easy with the writing this week and share some photos with you. :)

Here's the Concert Band in rehearsal in University Hall, where we also perform:

  

Here's a photo of the snowman (and mini-snowmen) the eng phys students made in front of our worklab windows. He's wearing "plaid" because our project is to design a "lumberjack" (robot) that moves to stay on top of a log (rotating cylinder). We modeled it in snow:

Finally, here's my optics lab from this week - it's a setup to measure the thickness of films only a few hundred nanometres thick, using interference from reflections.