My First Weeks at Drexel

Five weeks ago I began orientation at Drexel University. Needless to say, orientation is a terrible time filled with paperwork and other unnecessary meetings, especially when the orientation is two weeks long. However, the time was well spent. Besides learning how to code basic Python and listen to different scientists research topics, the two weeks of orientation allowed us first-years to meet each other and start meeting the other people in the department.  At first, we were all pretty shy, but that's going away bit by bit.

At the end of orientation, the physics graduate students went on a camping trip to the beach in Delaware. The weather was beautiful that weekend (except for some rain on Saturday night) and was a great icebreaker for the first years to feel included in the department. It also gave me some much needed alone time to sit and think about where I was and what is in store for my immediate future. I was rather sad and conflicted. I didn't necessarily want to make new friends as I felt it would be betraying  my friends from earlier in life. Of course, this isn't true, but that's how I felt. I saw no reason to try and convince myself otherwise, so I just let myself feel lonely for the first time in a long time. It was a good experience and reminded me about how much my life should not depend on relationships with my friends, but rather with Christ.

Even though that last paragraph sounds depressing, I thought that the camping trip was an amazing experience. I am very glad I went. For the parts that I felt lonely, there were other parts where I felt connected, or was doing something stupid (such as throwing myself at the ocean), or sculpting a sand mermaid.

Almost as soon as we got back from camping, classes started up and the first-years got our office space assigned to us. Having an office is rather new to me, and I'm fairly excited about it so far. I have a bookshelf where I can keep all of the textbooks I need so that I don't need to lug them around, there is a communal refrigerator and microwave, and I have a nice study spot any time I want one. All in all, I am very happy with it so far. We've done a bit of re-arranging. David (another first-year) is rather artistic and brought in some of his works. We've hung them around the room adding some color and class. It definitely feels much homier than it did before.

As for classes themselves, they have been less organized than I was used to at GCC. For the first two weeks of classes, our schedules kept changing because professors kept changing when they wanted to have class. This was rather frustrating to try and tell my students when they could contact me since I didn't know at the time. However, the earser shavings have ceased and my schedule will be left alone just long enough for me to get used to it before I have to change it up again come December.

Since I just mentioned it, I should probably talk about my class.  I teach a non-calculus based E&M course for biology and pre-med students. Long story about how that happened, but I do 2 labs and 2 lectures a week. It's been interesting and I've learned the following:

1. I enjoy teaching, but I enjoy it less when I am pulling the teeth of the people I'm teaching.
2. My dry humor does not work well in lecture when students don't want to be there.
3. I know a whole lot more about a subject than I thought I did.
4. People in physics classes are usually not physicists. They simply have to be there and don't really care about the physics at all.
5. "There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking." -Joshua Reynolds

All of these things being said, I am trying to learn to become a better teacher. At the same time, I'm holding in mind that I cannot make my students learn. They have to put in the effort and I am willing to help them learn as I can. However, I should not do more than this.

Academically, I think I am doing fine. All of the first years come together and help each other out when working on homework, which I really appreciate. I spent most of the past week hashing out some classical mechanics problems with David and getting to a point that we understand the material well. Then we are able to teach what we've learned to the others and they can use the information for there. They do the same for us too. It's been a very good relationship so far and I hope it stays this way. It's a lot of work (so far about 60-70 a week), but that's still less than GCC. When I come home from Drexel, I leave my work there and I can do whatever I feel like without feeling guilty that I should be doing some work. I'm going to keep trying to keep this mentality up, but just the other day I brought some grading home. I did it intentionally, and I plan to keep doing it in the future. I see nothing wrong with grading at home.

I think that should be more than enough for now. Before I close, I just wanted to give a shout out to all my GCC prof's and thank them for helping to prepare me for this. You all helped shape me into the man I am today, and I really appreciate it. I'd also like to thank Dr. Mark Fair for teaching me to be rigorous in my approach to physics. At first, some my classmates thought how I approached problems was unnecessarily complicated. That lasted until they tried to determine the kinetic energy of a particle in spherical coordinates (let alone more interesting coordinates)... 

I should be posting about my experiences at homecoming within a week. Until then, 

"May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer." -Ps. 19:14