Engineering Category
Catch-Up with Nathan and Victoria: Chapter III
Nov. 22, 2012—Well, that was cathartic. Turns out blogging is really excellent for morale, especially when I can take events that have been weighing heavily on my long-term memory (I do use that memory for class and whatnot) and put them in the electronic memory bank known as Inside ‘Dores. That came out more Star Wars-ish than...
Catch-Up with Nathan and Victoria: Chapter I
Nov. 17, 2012—Good evening, blogosphere. As has been my modus operandi for this semester, I am going to open this post with an apology. I’m sorry for disappearing for weeks on end, only to return for short stints filled with vague hints at the life I’ve been leading off the grid. The world is full of strange...
The Grind
Oct. 9, 2012—So, the number of blog drafts I have sitting on WordPress from mid-August when school began is a little embarrassing. I had every intention of posting updates on the first week of classes, Inside ‘Dores training, Melodores auditions, and a cornucopia of other beginning-of-year types of things. Fear not, reader, for I will deliver, albeit...
Coursera
Oct. 3, 2012—Vanderbilt recently announced that it is partnering with Coursera to offer free online courses. As such, when I was able to attend Daphne Koller’s (co-creator of Coursera) presentation for extra credit, I was super-excited. I thought it would be a somewhat interesting discussion, but I never imagined just how incredible this program really is nor how influential it will be to my future career...
My First Taste of Engineering
Sep. 26, 2012—Now this might sound strange, but I was actually really excited for this semester's classes to start. I am a sophomore biomedical engineering major and this is the first semester in which I can take actual engineering classes!
The Best Things About Vandy
Sep. 13, 2012—After my first summer away from Vandy, I couldn't wait to get back by the time August rolled around. I spent the summer doing research in a lab at home, which was an incredible experience, but Western blots just don't compare to Nashvegas. So for my first ever blog, I thought I'd write about all of the wonderful things that I missed and love about Vanderbilt.
Space is Awesome
Aug. 14, 2012—If you care about space at all, the past week or so has been a magical time (and if you don’t care about space at all, stop reading my blog right now. Seriously). Now, reader, I can hear you objecting to this whole article: “Nathan, your blog is supposed to make me love Vanderbilt!” Well....
The Mechatronics Master
Apr. 27, 2012—As I mentioned in a post near the semester’s beginning, my Mechatronics class culminated in a final design project. I celebrated Rites of Spring (click here for Victoria’s article) by staying up very very late night after night in order to design, build, troubleshoot and complete my project, and the fruits of my labor (the system and the 10-page...
Why Vanderbilt?
Mar. 27, 2012—Every once in a while I reminisce back to those wonderful (ha!) months of high school during which I googled different universities every day, wrote personal statements, and stressed about SAT scores…maybe more so now because soon I will have to do the same thing to apply to graduate school…and I remember discussions I had...
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.
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...
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).