Late Registration

People have been asking me a lot about school so I'm going to talk about school.  School is pretty good.

Registration was sucky though.  I thought Cornell had a bad system but University of Queensland's is nonsensical.  Without getting too far into detail, because I know you don't care, you basically have to do this weird guess and check to see if classes fit and they don't tell you if class times are conflicting.  And to top it off, the exam schedules aren't set when registering for classes so you sort of go in blind in terms of what is happening where and you can't really plan any adventures or excursions.  Since I'm an exchange student and didn't know how to work the system I ended up having to register late.  Going through learning a new registration process made me almost miss Cornell registration, and I suppose the grass is always greener, but really is it?  As Kanye West once said, "They claim you never know what you got 'til it's gone/ I know I got it, I don't know what y'all on".  I think I get it too Mr. West: College registration systems suck.

Picture of thing at University of Queensland

Anyway, I'm taking four classes while I'm here.  One is a Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer course *snore*, but it should be good to get a refresher in Thermo/learn Thermo.  Let's just say that me and Thermodynamics don't "C" eye to eye.  I'm also taking German 101 and Econ 101 because apparently Cornell Engineering wants me to be a well rounded person.  And I'm taking an Engineering management course, which will probably be more interesting than it sounds, but you're not really setting the bar high with the term "Engineering management".

Mechanical Engineering building.  One thing is constant among Engineering schools around the world: they have the ugliest buildings on campus.

Now Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer (course code MECH3400) is a pretty standard engineering course.  I imagine most of the engineering courses at UQ (cool guy speak for University of Queensland) are set up very similar to this course.  That being said, it is very different from what an engineering course at Cornell is like.  Most prominantly, there are no problem sets due each week.  NO HOMEWORK!  They do give you sets of problems to work on each week and a tutorial session (called Tuts, pronounced Toots) where you can work on the problems with Tutors, however you don't need to hand them in or attend the tutorials.  This has thrown me off because I haven't taken a class since like 1st grade where there was no homework.  How do I learn the material?  There is also only one midterm as opposed to the customary two at Cornell (sometimes three, oft referred to a Prelims).  The way this class is set up poses really unique learning challenges for me because it basically requires me to be even more self directed in absorbing material.  I supposed you're never too old to learn new learning techniques.

I'm only taking German to learn how to pick up German babes.

But seriously, I'm only taking German because it was the only thing that would fit in my schedule.

But really seriously, I'm taking German because I think Germany is where a lot of the great engineering and design innovations have been coming from in the past few decades and it would be awesome to be able to communicate with those innovators.  Was that a good answer Mom?  I've taken Spanish in middle school and high school, but I've forgotten a good amount of it, so I think it would be nice to try and learn a language again.

Economics is something I've meant to take for a really long time but never got around to it.  I honestly know nothing about economics.  I think it's one of those subject that we probably should have spent some time in grade school learning but we never did, or at least not thoroughly.

The engineering management class is gonna be pretty cool.  Basically the project in the class is to make a design proposal for an electric guitar made out of carbon fiber.  Designing a guitar is one of those things I have wanted to do for a while but never got the chance.  While we are largely graded on how we manage the project, the technical aspect is what's interesting me the most.  It's also where I will be interacting with Australians the most, because 5 of my 6 team members are Australians.  It's interesting just seeing how Australians interact in an engineering setting.  Plus they are all cool people.

SoOoOo pretty

As far as extracurriculars go, I've joined one club at UQ: the German Club.  Almost all of the clubs at UQ require like an entrance membership fee which is kinda stupid so I didn't join that many clubs.  German club is pretty cool; they hold get togethers and study sessions fairly regularly.  Their first event of the year was a trivia night, which was awesome because I had been missing trivia a lot since leaving Ithaca.  Because I didn't know anybody in the club I joined the trivia team that looked like it knew the least about what was going on.  This was a good decision because everyone on the team was very friendly.  There were two Australian students who said they showed up mostly for the beer, a German student named David studying Biochemistry at UQ, and two older guys who were best friends: Andy who was from Germany; and Ian who was an Australian taking German night classes at UQ so he and Andy could talk in German.  Our team was well versed in everything from German history to pop culture so we won a few rounds which entailed a free pitcher of beer.  After trivia we sat around talking about sports and American and German and Australian culture.  What I have found very striking is how much everyone else know about America compared to what I know about other countries.  Australians even have to learn American History in grade school, and David told me in Germany he had to learn the states and capitals of the US.  It turns out Andy and Ian had first met doing Battlefield reenactments  and one of the wars they act out is the Civil War, which is odd because you don't really see Americans acting out anything other than the Civil or Revolutionary War, although I'm not well versed on the American reenactment scene.  Anyway, I got to hear stories about growing up in Cold War Germany, German schooling, Australian sports, German sports.  These guys also got me to drink more than anyone else ever has, however that record was previously held by my Dad.

Talking to these guys was a great time.  I suppose these are the kind of people you want to run into while traveling abroad.  Interesting, diverse, and friendly people.  I don't think I'll be seeing them around campus anytime soon, trivia only happens once a semester, and I think they were mostly at German club for the free beer, but if I could quote Kanye West one more time, "They say people in you life are seasons/And anything that happens is for a reason".  I suppose some people come into your life like Lions and leave like Lambs, while others enter like Lambs and leave like Lions.  But I think there's that group of people who are like the Indian Summer, only around for a short amount of time, but while they're there they are delightful.  And I'm not saying I'm fatalistic or anything, but most people you interact with shape your life in a certain way.

To my knowledge those are green beans.  I could be wrong though.