shaka, when the walls fell.

It's that fun time of year to reflect on your life and see what you've done. I've neglected blogging for awhile, and it's always a fun way to waste time while putting off actual work. I may not get a chance to touch this for awhile. Plus it makes me feel good to brag like this. 2011 was a well lived year with many many ups and many many downs. I hope your year went as well as mine.

I was my brother's Best Man.

I got on the honor's roll.

I wrote my first Ruby on Rails application.

I won a senior design competition.

I worked on projects for a professor.

I got a job out of college.

I got a job with "software engineering" in the title.

I got to live life outside of school, long enough to want to go back....then went back, and realized how much I hated being there.

I graduated!

I got to experience life outside a startup, the corporate world.

I got to work in the Biomedical Device industry.

I got my first code released and code reviewed.

I was an RA.

I got to meet people I'd never have met before.

I learned how to stop thinking about people's age.

I asked out a girl for the first time.

I went on my first date.

I had my first *real* relationship.

I fell mady in love.

I stopped being bitter, and was shown a better life.

I had my heart broken to pieces, and that better life taken away.

I stopped hating my parents, and learned to let them into my life.

I became closer to my brother. (I love you man!)

I became closer to my old roommates and friends (You guys rock!).

I learned to listen to my internal compass.

I learned how to disregard what everyone told me.

I learned to live with the consequences.

I learned to live alone.

I learned how to live with someone.

I learned how to reach out to friends.

I lost 20 pounds.

I ran 12 miles.

I got in the best shape of my life.

I learned how to shoot skeet.

I got my first car.

I learned how to drive manual.

I learned how to jump start a car (twice!).

I learned that life usually hits you in the face with some sort of car trouble.

i think the magical thing about four years (and a quarter) of college isn't necessarily the knowledge you gain or the people you meet. i mean, granted, those are what everyone cares about, and they run our lives and whatnot.

but the part that interests me in the transformation. the change in the tone. the mood. the setting. the transition from a reactive element to a proactive element. i guess what i'm getting at is this:

i woke up today and realized i can do whatever the fuck i want. i am free.

...

 

It's a good Thanksgiving weekend when you can drag your ass out of bed at 4:00AM on a Sunday and be productive. 

Yes, this is procrastination from studying. But it sums up my frustrations with school so succintly.

Don't get me wrong. I love school. I love college. It's been a really really awesome four years, and every day of it, whether I was single, in a relationship, freaking out, drinking copiously, sleeping, it was all great. I love waking up to college, going out to college, and then coming home and making sweet sweet study time with college. I really do.

But I really really hate being in college. As a biomedical engineering undergraduate, a bulk of your upper division courses are spent reading papers. That's right, you're like a science major. You read journal articles, review them, reread them again, memorize the principles of operation, and how every single god damn device out there is the novel-next-generation-save-the-world-end-world-hunger-and-make-you-waffles device. 

Which I love! I love reading about how other people have gone out and made cool things. I love that in biomedical engineering, there's no need for a higher purpose - saving lives IS the higher purpose. It's the biggest fucking problem there is in the world. And this is all fine and good for the 1 or 2 years that you study stuff like this. It's perfect timing, because in your last quarter of your 5th year...

(where i'm at)

you really...really...hate it. because everyday is a reminder that instead of going out and throwing yourself haphazardly at really cool problems, and coming up with creative blow-your-mind-all-over-the-barstool solutions. you're stuck in school, bogged down by a midterm (tomorrow) and a thousand other projects that scream incessantly for your attention. 

and every article i read these days is a reminder that time is the most precious resource we have.

Thanks fellas!

I remember seeing this comic a few years ago, perhaps even posting it here. How delightfully tragic.

Okay, so maybe the title isn't completely accurate. I'm not exactly "out" of college per-se. I still have 1 more quarter left in school, and then I have a year signed lease up here in Davis. So I'll be "in" college for quite a while, even after I've graduated yet...but mere semantics no?

In any case, its been quite a while since I last posted (Feb? OH SHIT) , and a lot of things have happened in the interim. Senior Design, relationships, RA life, jobs, jobs, etc., etc. A lot of it I couldn't post, due to privacy concerns for myself, my residents, and those significant to my life. But there is one thing that I wanted to take the time to reflect on, and that's my experience as a Biomedical Engineering undergraduate at UC Davis. Surely in this crazed world we live in, an increasing number of younglings will want to explore the option of Biomedical Engineering, and especially within the confines of UC Davis.

So if you're interested in the program, read on - else, please skip this post and wait till I get back into taking photos of my food. I'll properly retitle this blog as "James' I/O Blog"...

During Decision Day at UC Davis, the Resident Advisors were drafted into becoming tour guides. Yes yes, we show the parents the dormitories on campus, and we talk about all the wonderful things that student housing offers its Freshman resident. Yes yes yes, things are fantastic, and parents ask a myriad of somewhat pertinent questions. Oh where's the laundry room, oh where's the bathrooms, are they co-ed. Lots of BLAH.

The smart parents ask about the school. There's no better way to get a feel for what the University is like than asking the students. If the student you ask seems smart, and has intelligible things to say about the University, you're probably in good hands. Needless to say, I encountered one of these folks in my stint as a tour guide. He asked me about the Biomedical Engineering program at UC Davis. "How was it? Do you like it? What are your thoughts on it?" This is what I told him.

The Short:

You will meet some of the brightest, energetic, creative, and thoughtful people in Biomedical Engineering (if you give it some effort). But if you don't know what it is that you want to do with your major, you're going to get screwed.

The Long:

BME is the jack of all trades, master of none. The challenge I pose to you, and that BME at UCD poses to you, is to break this adage. Be a jack of all trades, and master of ONE. Pick one thing, maybe two if you're smart, but be REALLY GOOD AT IT. And then, and only then, will you find some shred of happiness at the end of your four years. Few people I know in the program have graduated without achieving what they wanted to achieve while in college (a job, research, etc), and the few that haven't I have no doubt that they will within the next few months.

That said, the program is geared more towards people who can balance extracurriculars with their schoolwork, because what you do outside of BME is just as important as what you do in BME. Now I'm talking about more than just being part of the BME society. I'm talking about other clubs, research, jobs, skill development...anything and everything that will make you stand out. BME classes themselves do what any engineering class is supposed to do. Give you good fundamentals, and then turn you towards the world and lets you go figure things out.

The interesting thing is that past your junior year of BME undergrad, you don't learn a whole lot more about the fundamentals. What you learn about is the applications. This will be the best year of your BME undergraduate career. If you have any inclination into entering the device industry, then your last year will be the most important one. You will learn things that will actually be relevant in the industry. Things that will impress people in interviews. Things that will place you above other applicants from other fields of engineering. You will gain an insight into technology that few other people have. I speak from experience. But always remember, that insight alone doesn't make you unique. It's that insight, paired with your one mastered trade I talked about earlier, which will make you a better student and a better applicant for jobs and graduate school.

Anyways, that's all I have for the moment. Take from it what you will. The program has much more depth and many more idiosyncrasies that I can talk about in a single post. Maybe I'll revisit this and revise it, but for now, that's all my brain could spit out in an hour.

After three weeks of exams and lab reports and quizzes and papers it's nice to spend a little time doing something actually interesting.

Thanks fortune cookie!

The sauce is the boss - enough said.