Author
Final Projects
Mar. 26, 2012—For better or for worse, there are a lot of indicators that I’m becoming an upperclassman (see Figure 1). I have a lot of (sometimes unwanted) responsibilities in ROTC, I’m finding myself considering leadership in multiple school organizations, and my schoolwork is maturing from problem sets to more design and analysis-based projects.
IMPACT 2012
Mar. 21, 2012—Each year, Vanderbilt Programming Board hosts several distinguished speakers at its IMPACT Symposium to give lectures on consecutive nights about a variety of political topics. In the past, speakers have included Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Strom Thurmond, and Robert F. Kennedy (just to give a sample of the many prestigious guests). This year, I...
Commissioning
Mar. 2, 2012—A week ago today, a young man entered the community of United States Army officers, leaving his youthful cadet-ship behind for the gold bars of a second lieutenant in the Military Intelligence Corps. Generally, ROTC commissions its senior class at the end of the year, on the afternoon of commencement (making it a VERY big...
How I Know the Robots Are After Me
Mar. 1, 2012—Earlier in the semester (MUCH earlier), I talked about my first day of Mechatronics class. I mentioned the kit we’d be working with, complete with Arduino micro-controller, circuit components, and other such tools. Each week in February (the kits came into the bookstore late), we’ve had an assignment involving creating or modifying code for the...
Spirit of Uganda
Feb. 27, 2012—Tonight, I ended up going to an event at Langford Auditorium, part of Vanderbilt’s “Great Performances” series. I hadn’t planned on going until my friends convinced me at the last minute, and I am so very glad they did. The Spirit of Uganda is the public face of Empower African Children, a foundation dedicated to...
OutDores
Feb. 26, 2012—Near the end of last year, as sophomore year housing was becoming an issue, I was offered a spot in a VIP (Vanderbilt Interest Project) by a friend of mine from ROTC. The VIP’s are a somewhat diluted version of the Mayfield Projects, with less group commitment in exchange for guaranteed housing in a less...
Giving Blood
Feb. 10, 2012—Howdy, Internet! After my streak of critically acclaimed, New York Times bestseller blogs, I found myself devoid of the creativity, the drive, the spark that usually inspires me to such heights of blogging genius. At the beginning of this year, as described in a previous article about cows, I accidentally joined Vandy Red Cross, a...
My Shout-out (or How to be an Inside ‘Dore)
Jan. 25, 2012—Applications for first-year students to be Inside Dores bloggers are due today at 4:00 pm! I have few illusions that this article will be of assistance to applicants at such a late hour (if I even finish this before the deadline), but I decided this was a good occasion to write about being an undergraduate...
The Engineering Overlap
Jan. 24, 2012—I'm not sure if I've at all mentioned that I'm a Mechanical Engineering and Math double major. Now, then. The price of these two excellent majors is that every semester feels the same: engineering and math until I've actually forgotten how to speak English coherently (this blog is my only outlet for such language).
The Package Line
Jan. 17, 2012—Coming back from winter break is different from starting a new school year in several big, important ways. There are fewer new students (just a handful of transfers), and it’s only been about three weeks since the last time you lived in your dorm room (which you don’t have to move into). However, there’s another way in which...