While Baltimore has been suffering from a heat wave and widespread power outages, I can finally say I am happy to be away from school.  California weather is amazing!  75 and sunny everyday, with no humidity!! Tomorrow is a federal holiday, so UCLA will be closed, and I am not required to sit in my office at the Institute of Pure and Applied Math from 9-5.

My first week and a half here has been amazing.  I am working with a group of four on a seemingly impossible task to write a new algorithm that recreates a 3D model from 2D image without the use of reference-like points in imagery.  The people here are surprisingly outgoing and normal, even for math majors.  Every night we go out on adventures around LA.  Tomorrow, being the 4^th of July, we are all headed to Santa Monica/Venice Beach to spend the day lounging in the sand, and then watching the fireworks over the ocean at night.

Mathematicians on the beach!

As stressful and intense the project work is, the program has been a lot of fun so far.  I have met people from all over the world, from Italy to Kenya.  My roommate, Ana, is a Romanian native, but studies at Cambridge.  My office mate on the other hand, studies at Rutgers but is originally from Greece.  It’s such a great experience to meet so many intelligent and outgoing people from literally all over the world.

They indeed required a group of 30 math students to play the human knot... But my team won!!

I had completely different expectations of the program and its participants before I arrived, but I have been pleasantly surprised.  I know this summer will be fruitful, and I will learn a lot.  Even if I didn’t learn anything, it’s at least exciting to meet new people.  The only downside is waking up at 7 am daily, being exhausted by 3 pm.  I guess I can always shut my office door and put my head down.  There is also the fact that I am living in the dorms and dining at dining halls.  It brings me back to my freshmen year at Hopkins in Building A.  I must say I forgot how much I appreciated my double bed in my apartment.  Either way, so far this program has been a fantastic experience, and I know that it will only get better as time goes on!

I have only one short day left before I leave for LA for the rest of summer.  In between leaving Baltimore and heading to LA I stopped home in MN for a few days.  As my years in college pass, the amount of time I spend at home dwindles, and this year I think it was quickly approaching less than two weeks.  When you leave for college as an incoming freshmen there is comfort in knowing that it’s okay because you’ll be back home soon enough anyways.  The reality, at least for me anyways, that the day I left home for my freshmen year was and will probably be the last day I would ever really live at home.

Being far away from home definitely has advantages.  It’s nice to become your own person and gain independence.  In my case, going to school on the east coast was an opportunity to finally get out the of the Midwest and see the country.  Yet while you are away from home, you can miss out on so much.  In my experience, many of my friends from high school attended local university, and I have since lost touch with them.  It’s hard having life move on without you sometimes.

Eight months ago my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and in the past month her disease has rapidly accelerated.  Since I’ve been home, I have been spending time with her, and for the past eight months my mom’s schedule has revolved completely around her.  Alzheimer’s is such a devastatingly sad disease, not only for the individual but also especially for the families.  Since seeing my grandmother at Christmas, she has declined.  She is frailer, and now she doesn’t recognize her own home.  Some nights she thinks she’s in Mexico, others she is in Alaska.  Memories are something we cherish.  They are the things we remember that bring us happiness or solace in hard times.  Watching someone’s memories slip away is heartbreaking.

Yesterday my mom told me she doesn’t think she will make it through the summer.  I guess I wasn’t surprised, but it was certainly something difficult to hear.  Together we came to the conclusion that if she passed away while I was in Baltimore or California, I would not attend the funeral.  It’s hard to know that I won’t get that opportunity to say goodbye because I’ve chosen to place myself so far from home, but I hate funerals anyways.  So in this remaining time at home, I will continue to spend time with my grandmother, accepting the fact that it will likely be my last.  But in the end, no matter what happens, I will still have my happy memories of her from before her diagnosis with Alzheimer’s, countless Christmases and Easters and Birthdays to remember.

It’s amazing the things you will accumulate in college.  Sometimes you don’t really recognize it until you have to put it all in boxes.  From textbooks, to filled and half-filled notebooks, to the clothes you’ve been accumulating since freshmen year, it all has to fit into boxes.  I made my final move until graduation the past few days.  I came to Hopkins with only two suitcases, and boy have my belongings grown since then.

I save boxes from things I order online to use when moving. They make great entertainment, too!

I am slowly unpacking what seems to be countless boxes in my living room.  With each box, I am remembering the places I have been since I came to Hopkins, and more importantly the person I was and now the person I have become.  I used to wear jeans all the time as a freshman, and now I can’t even remember the last time I pulled a pair of jeans on.  I found the pennant I was given on my first day of SAAB.  The plaque I was given at the Gilman rededication ceremony last year made from the marble of the old Gilman steps.  Lastly, I found a bottle of sparking apple juice from the ChemBE Student Excellence ceremony from last year.  I threw that away.  It’s funny how so many things I haven’t touched since my first year here.  I have nearly everything from my first year, including my old twin xl bedding and twin down mattress pad.  I thought maybe I should throw them out, but I guess I never know.  Someday I might be in a dorm room again.  On the other hand, I have lots of new things too, including my very first suit I just purchased for my upcoming summer in LA.

Every year moving turns into a more dramatic multiple day process.  The number of boxes and bins always increases, and there is also some dramatic event that makes the whole thing worse. This year one of my cats went missing while the movers my roommate hired left the apartment door propped open.  For three hours I searched every nook and cranny, calling his name.  He was nowhere.  I had begun to loose hope that somewhere between the 16^th and 4^th floors he was gone.  But then after everyone had left, and I was alone still moving, I leaned against my bed and found him near my feet.  I think he had crawled inside a piece of furniture to hide, but I was so relieve to have him back.  Of all the things I have accumulated during college, there are some that definitely mean more than others.

Wilbur with his lost cat poster. He's even making friends with JHU_Greco!

I have another week before I head home for a few days before heading the UCLA for the rest of the summer.  Without tv or internet, I am taking my time unpacking each box and carefully organizing my apartment.

So much has happened in the past few months.  Honestly, sophomore and junior year seem like a dream now.  They just blew right past me!  Today was the last day of classes of my junior year.  It was pretty relaxed.  At 11 am I had a one-hour review for my Kinetics course, and at 12 pm a one-hour review for Algebra.  I have so many assignments and papers and not to mention finals to finish before my junior year is officially over, so I feel like I shouldn’t start celebrating just yet…

I have been hoarding food for finals. Voila enough pancakes to last reading period.

For a while this semester I was honestly stressing about my future.  With senior year encroaching so quickly, I began fretting about grad school…about post graduation.  At the beginning of the semester I wrote a blog about applying to math research programs for the summer.  It was an incredibly grueling and tough time, and for the most part programs don’t even contact you with a rejection if you aren’t chosen so there is a sincere feeling of being in limbo.  These programs are incredibly competitive, accepting only 5-10% of the applicants.

I received some great news that I was accepted into the program at UCLA.  I received a call while I was napping after an extremely late night/early morning of doing homework.  At first I wondered who was calling me from a California, and to my delight when I answered it was someone for IPAM (Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics.)  Even after a twenty minute conversation on the phone with someone from UCLA, I sort of thought it was a dream until I received a hoard of emails from the department the next day.   I feel so incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to go to UCLA this summer (which has an absolutely incredible and very prestigious math department.)  I am so grateful I had such generous math professors from Hopkins that were willing to stand up for me and write me great letters as well.

I am feeling so much more optimistic about my future now.  I know I am going to have a great experience in California this summer.  I’ve actually never been to CA, but I’ve always dreamed of going.  For a while in high school I wanted only to apply to colleges in CA.  I guess I’ve always sort of romanticized CA like the characters in The Grapes of Wrath (love that book!), and to me it is kind of like the final frontier.

A part of me feels like anything is possible; that there still is hope.  Sometimes it is really easy to begin to feel like all hope is lost, but I guess it can still be renewed.  I feel so much more optimistic about my future and my abilities and passions.  It’s crazy to think my time at Hopkins is almost over.  Suddenly now it seems really worth it.  This strange memory of my freshmen year keeps popping into my head recently.  It is spring semester, and I am wearing shorts in the library up very late trying to do my number theory homework, then I am on the quad and it is quiet and empty.  It’s strange and kind of weird, but I keep thinking about that night over and over again for no reason.

As a freshman I joined a club known as the Chemical Engineering Car Team.  For years this club had existed, but year-after-year each team had no success.  For the competition each team must create a small car that is moved as well as stopped solely by a chemical reaction.  It’s a tough task, and every year before this year the Hopkins team never really got it together.

It’s a challenge not because of the lack on intellect on behalf of Hopkins students, but the countless hours spent designing, testing, and constantly struggling when things randomly go wrong.  Since my freshmen year it has been my goal to see this team go to Nationals, and this year we finally did it!

This past fall the department was generous enough to create a course for the team, so each week we met in small groups, where we designed and tested ideas.  After nearly a semester of testing and designing, we chose the best of our ideas and implemented them on a car.  This semester we spent constantly testing and modifying our car.  Near the end I think I was spending nearly 20 hours a week working with others on the car, which is far more time than I spend on any homework assignment or other club.

Each team was giving this tiny table to work with as well as only a gallon of DI water.

Last weekend, the entire headed to Hoboken, New Jersey for the competition.  On the competition day, just an hour before the start the teams are notified of a distance the cars are required to travel, as well as a weight.  Then you have to prepare your reactions accordingly, and get your car to stop closest to the line.  The competition was intense, if you can believe it or not.  There was a lot of pressure as well as unpredictability.  As the main person in charge of the stopping reaction, I was pipetting nearly nonstop for two hours.  In the end, we place third overall and secured our spot in Nationals.  It was really one of the coolest moments I have experienced as a Hopkins student.  I have watched this team struggle and fail for years due to poor organization and leadership, and this year we really pulled it together.  We proved to our department that we can do it, and not to lose faith in the club.  I am so eager to see what this has in stores for the ChemBE’s after me who chose to join, and I hope that this set precedent that we are a nationally competitive team.

A very happy team after the competition!

It was my dream as a freshman to see this club make it to nationals, and this year all I wanted to was to make it to Nationals for my senior year.  In college, you will experience a lot of let downs, and you might not achieve lots of your goals or get what you want.  This was one of those moments I saw all my hard work and dedication for a tiny little car smaller than a square foot mean something.  It was hard not to get emotional when that car stopped so close to the line.  I am so proud I was a part of the very first Johns Hopkins ChemE Car Team to make it to Nationals, and I hope this time won’t be the last.

All dressed up for the dinner cruise.

A lovely handwritten award.

I fee like I never start enough blogs with anecdotes, so here’s a fun story from my childhood.  When I was five years old, I got my first teddy bear hamster, and I named him Swimmy.  Many people thought the name Swimmy made no sense for a land animal like a hamster, but it in fact was a tribute to a children’s book by the very same name.  The story goes, as Swimmy was a little black fish that didn’t quite fit in the colony of gold fish.  When Swimmy goes out and explores the sea alone, he returns to his school of fish and teaches them how they can work together to fight off the big fish that is going to eat them.  Together the fish create an illusion of a bigger fish, and Swimmy serves as the eye.

Swimmy the black fish and the school of goldfish.

Needless to say, I eventually put my hamster in the bathtub just to make sure he couldn’t swim, but he survived.  After Swimmy passed away (not from drowning), I got a goldfish named Drummy.  There is no explanation for that name.

When we, at Hopkins Interactive, were asked to write a blog in the month of April on “Why Hopkins”, I was a bit hesitant.  As a junior, I have a set of experiences much different from the freshmen and sophomore perspective.  I just don’t always have the same doe-eyed perspective Maybe I’m just old, ornery, and an eternal pessimist?  It’s been a long time since I applied to Hopkins, so I don’t think I can freshly recall my thinking from then, but I can tell you “Why Hopkins” from my experiences now.  I’m not in a sorority.  I don’t play a sport.  I’m not premed.  I’m not a musician, and I can’t sing.  So in many ways, I am just like Swimmy (the fish, not the hamster), and I’ll share my experiences after my exploration at Hopkins.

Many people choose Hopkins for its prestige, its well-known Hospital, or its US News Rankings.  The reasons for “Why Hopkins” lie behind the numbers and the rankings.  Here are the reasons I have found.

BFF and fellow ChemBE JHU_Greco! :)

Hopkins will make you a better person and build character.  The first thing you will learn at Hopkins is humility.  Confidence has it’s time and place, but the ability to be humble is essential.  Hopkins will teach you how to pick yourself up after defeat and how to accept your loses.  In life not everything will you go your way, you are going to be said no to countless times, and the experiences you have at Hopkins prepare you for the real world.  The Hopkins experience doesn’t take place in a fantasyland.  Hopkins is a place very much like the real world.  I think after my four years here, I have reconciled with reality.  One of the first things I ever learned at Hopkins is that I am not very special.  Everyday I sit in classes with students just as smart as me, some even smarter than me.  It changes your perspective of the world, and I know in the future it will be something I am thankful for.  The person I was before Hopkins is completely from who I am today.  I think Hopkins has allowed me to open my eyes to the real world and shed my naivety.

Things get a little messy during finals period.

At Hopkins you will learn how to work with your peers and learn you can’t do it alone.  It is said you can’t make it through ChemBE alone unless you’re a savant demi-god.  I couldn’t believe this more.  Since my freshmen year, I have made such a close bond with two of my peers.  We do everything together, every problem set, study for every exam, eat almost every meal, and hang out on the weekends.  I couldn’t be where I am today without them.  Hopkins is a place where success relies upon cooperation, not competition.  It is such a well-circulated myth that Hopkins is cut-throat and competitive.  Yet, when I look around my classes, I can exactly pick out the groups of people who work together, and nearly no one works alone.  In the real world, especially the engineering world, it is absolutely essential to know how to work and communicate with others.  If it weren’t for the high standards that my majors have set for me, I wouldn’t have the communication and cooperation skills I have today.

Shadowy figures on the roof of Kreiger Hall. Thanks for the photo JHU_Greco! ;)

Academics are what Hopkins is most well known for, and also what it is most infamous for.  At Hopkins you will work harder than you ever had before, and it will be worth it.  Looking back, I honestly feel I knew nothing before Hopkins.  Hopkins is tough, there’s no doubt about it.  Yet, that challenge reaffirms your passion for a subject.  And if the passion isn’t there, you’ll quickly find out.  I personally came to Hopkins for the intellectual challenge, and the opportunity to grow intellectually diverse and stronger.  I couldn’t have possibly imagined three years ago what I know today.  There are times when the work gets tough, and sometimes very tough, but in the end it’s always worth it.  At Hopkins, I discovered my passion for math.  Though my experiences have been anything but easy (seriously go back to my blogs from freshmen year), I have rode out the major and completed it.  Now I am going onto take graduate courses and applying to PhD programs in the fall.  If it wasn’t for Hopkins and a very amazing postdoc, I would have never discovered my passion, a passion I see lasting a lifetime.  That is something I am so incredibly grateful for.

So those are my reasons for “Why Hopkins.”  Good luck on making your decision.  I hope to see you on campus in the fall.

When a lot of people envision college spring break, they think of tropical vacations with lots of sun and partying.  In reality, lots of students’ spring breaks are very different.  A lot of kids go home, or they visit friends from other schools.  This year, like last year, I headed to New York City, one of my favorite places to visit when I have a bit of free time.  It’s under $40 to take a bus to NYC on a bus. While in New York, JHU_Greco and I spent three nights in a hotel room probably smaller than a Charles Commons bedroom.

New York is a great place to sight see if you haven’t been before, but once you have been a few times most of the sight seeing is done.  New York is a great place for other things.  My favorite part is probably the food.  There is cuisine from every part of the world, and so many restaurants to choose from.  While in the city, I had French food, Thai food, and sushi.  The variety is so much bigger than in Baltimore that it’s a nice change.

While in New York, I also finally visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Art museums are one thing that I love doing in my free time.  Although we only spent three hours in the museum, we really had to pick and choose what sections to visit.  My personal favorite is Contemporary Art from the 19^th and the 20^th centuries.

All in all, we only spent three days in the city, but I am happy to be back already.  Gives me lots of time to spend at home in my apartment with my two newly adopted foster kittens, Sandy and Wilbur.  It’s nice to be able to sleep in again.

Freshmen ChemBE’s in the mentorship program always ask “So when does it get better?”  As an underclassman, I always got mixed responses.  Some would say “after Transport I”, others would say “after sophomore year.”  I’ve come to my own conclusion now as an upperclassman.  I don’t think it really does.  That is not to say that this program is grueling every semester through, but every semester presents with a new and challenging courses and there has never been an “easy semester.” This semester is no exception. I am currently enrolled in Abstract Algebra II, Kinetic Process, Separation Process, Applications of Molecular Evolution to Biotechnology, and The Culture of the Engineering Profession.  Up to last week I was enrolled in Spectroscopy, a really fascinating upper level chemistry course about how light interacts with matter.  I self taught myself quantum mechanics and everything, but even then I was the only undergraduate in the course.  I found myself struggling immensely with work this semester, so six weeks in I dropped Spectroscopy.  It was probably the hardest thing I have done so far academically, as I have never dropped a class before.

My time at Hopkins is quickly coming to the end, and I have to say I am a bit sad I don’t have many exciting things to blog about.  This semester has probably been my toughest yet.  Today was my first and only midterm for Algebra, and I spent all weekend non-stop studying for it.  Now I am sitting at Café Q, only moments after finishing the test.  I feel a little woozy, but I am happy it’s over.

Oh little Wilbur, it's a big scary world out there!

This test was really important for me.  Earlier this semester I applied for five REU programs.  If you are not familiar with what a REU is; it is a NSF funded summer research program for undergraduates, which take place at various colleges across the nation.  I applied to five, which I thought was a pretty zealous number (considering I only applied to two colleges), but it turns out that most people apply to ten or more!  Why?  Because they are ultra competitive.  Hundreds of students apply for one of ten spots in a program, so the deny rate far exceeds the admit.  The process is very similar to that of applying to a university.  You submit an application, with your resume, transcript, two letters of rec from mathematics professors, as well as a few essays on why you love math, and your future goals.  So far I have been denied from one program, and (hopelessly) waitlisted for another.  So now I am sitting here, mid-March, having no idea what I am doing for the summer after my junior year.  Naturally I am fretting over graduate school applications.  A REU is a huge bonus on your application.  I put my heart and soul into those essays, and sadly I am starting to lose hope.  Now for the first time in years, I feel more connected to the college application process than ever.  I am terrified of the thought of having no idea what is going on for the summer, and I am obsessively checking my email for any news from programs.  That feeling of rejection is discouraging from my future plans.  I guess I am in search for some validation.

Being a double major, has been nothing but exhaustive.  There are moments this year that I have truly regretted it, since it has caused me to stretch myself so thing I am starting to rip at the seams.  I think what brought me to Hopkins was my passion.  Passion is something I have no shortage of.  But sometimes, especially now, I am thinking passion isn’t enough.

When people ask me about abstract mathematics, I always stress the fact that it isn’t really about numbers anymore.  It’s about structure, and patterns, and logical relationships.  Now, the one thing that may be keeping me from my dreams in mathematics are the numbers; the GPA, the number of courses, the admit rate, the math GRE score.  Suddenly number matter more than anything else, and I wish it wasn’t a numbers game anymore.

Spring break is next week, and I am eagerly awaiting my trip to NYC with JHU_Greco.  We booked this super hipster hotel with bunk beds.  It will be like freshmen year all over again!

My childhood was different to say the least.  I would describe my upbringing as laissez faire (sorry mom and dad if you read this, but it’s the truth, and I ended up alright.)  My parents were different than other parents.  My mom was an artist, so I grew up around sketchbooks, watercolors, and color pencils.  I have books filled with drawings, mostly of cats and myself.  I always drew myself with red hair, even though I was never a redhead.  I even have some figure sketches I did when I was about seven, which I intend to frame in my future house as testament of my interpretation of the human body and comfort with nudity at such a young age.  My dad on the other hand gave us toolkits, and hammers, and nails.  When I was in kindergarten, while we were on vacation in Florida, he gave me his Swiss Army Knife to play with, and I have a scar to prove that I didn’t understand when you press on the blade in a certain direction, it collapses and will cut you.

My dad was always great at building things.  In elementary school he would bring his Van de Graaf Generator to our classes, so kids could shock themselves and have their hairs stand on end.  When I was in sixth grade, he even brought his homemade hovercraft to school, so kids to glide down the halls on air.  He was always to subject of admiration of kids and teachers.

There was a side of my family I always kept hidden.  I grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis, where the moms would drive shiny Lexus SVUs, and live in fancy two story houses with a kitchen with granite countertops and glossy wood floors.  My parents drove cars that were older than me.  First was the 1989 Cadillac.  By the end of its years, when I was nearly in high school, the chassis was rusting, which my dad patched with fiberglass but never painted.  The adhesive from the upholstery on the ceiling gave loose, so the fabric drooped from the ceiling.  It got so embarrassing that my sisters and I would request that dad not pick us up from school in “dad’s car”, the Cadillac.  One evening when my mom was driving and friend home from a birthday party, we were pulled over for how suspicious the car looked.  That was the icing on the cake.

Mom’s car was slightly better, a 1991 one red GMC Suburban, that got approximately six miles to the gallon, at best about eight.  It had fabric seats, which I still argue are way better than leather.  I remember the night of confirmation when I was in eighth grade, the heat stopped working in the single digit evenings of a Minnesota winter.  I was jealous of my friend’s cars, which had fancy cameras so you could see when you were backing up, and even had CD players.  Eventually those cars were retired and new, old cars replace them.  But even now, my parents drive cars that date to pre-2000’s, and I think that says something about my family.

Our kitchen was a similar story.  Linoleum, a substance most modern youth are not familiar with, was plentiful in that room.  Our appliances I think are considered vintage, dating back to the 70’s, with avocado green facades and faux wood detailing.  Our kitchen is a scene straight out of “That 70’s Show”, except it’s not a set it’s real life.  I was always envious of friends’ houses, shiny, modern, and with six figure price tags.  I’m not saying I live in a dump; it’s far from it.  Really, my house is rather nice.
You’re probably wondering why I am going on about all the old, crappy things in my childhood.  So, I’ll hurry to the point.  Growing up, I always valued new and expensive things.  My family’s life style was something I was embarrassed about.  People always view engineers as people that are good at building and fixing things.  Sure, maybe some are, but I would argue that most of the engineering students today could tell a Phillips screwdriver from a flat head, and they probably couldn’t build anything.  We live in an age of computer aided design, MatLab, where technology or someone across the globe will make things easy for us.  My father was skilled enough to keep a refrigerator running for over forty years and counting, and cars that had over half a million miles on them running.  That is something I admire, the ability to accept a technology no matter how old it is, for it’s usefulness, not its fashion statement.  He taught me so much, from how to solder and weld to how to apply a butterfly bandage when I spliced open my middle finger welding a transformer.  I even have a crescent moon shaped scar on my finger of my left hand to prove it, and I used to use it to tell right from left.  Most importantly, he taught my patience.  My parents’ values brought me to where I am today.  They brought my to Hopkins, not only academically, but also saved their entire lives to give me a college education, free of loans.  That is something I am infinitely grateful for.    So even though I spent most of my life being embarrassed of the place I came from, now I am proud.

Second semester has only just begun, but the deadline to add courses has already passed! It seems like I am never at home, and 4 out 5 weekdays it seems like I am on campus from 8 am to 7 pm straight.

Right before the semester started, I began fostering six kittens from Barcs, which is an animal shelter located near the Inner Harbor.  Having six little buddies running around has been fun, but has made sleeping near impossible, since I am constantly covered in cats, and one always wants to sleep on my head.

She sleeps on top of heads...

Fostering animals is a great way for Hopkins students to experience having animals at home (not in dorms of course) without having to commit to long-term keeping the animals.  However, knowing me, I am of course keeping a kitten or two for myself.  Animals have always been such an important part of my life, an I just can’t seem to live without a cat in my life.

Fostering also helps the animal shelters out.  There is only limited space for animals and, especially for older animals, if there is no room they get euthanized.  Kittens, on the other hands, need lots of socializing and space to play, so that’s why a foster home is the ideal place for them.

Kittens are no good at doing homework.

I’ve had my little guys for about three weeks now, and I will have them for one more week before they go in for a check up.  Then they just get surgically sterilized, and they are ready for adoption.  I was really excited that I found homes for all six kittens with JHU students.  I know they would go to good homes if they were adopted straight from Barcs, but I am also very excited that they are going home with Hopkins students.  Having a little kitty around really makes studying at home so much more fun!

Algebra makes Wilbur sleepy too.