Emon Chatterji's "Time Capsule" Reflection Essay
My second semester of classes was very overwhelming - in both good and bad ways. I took 18 credits this semester so the work load was definitely pretty heavy but my classes were also very interesting. One class in particular that was a lot of fun was ENES100, the general engineering class. I knew we would be working in groups to put together a little car as a semester long project, but a lot of the more subtle details about the class were lost on me. In particular, I was lucky to have Professor Mike Galczynski as my instructor because he definitely understood how to make it more of an experience than a class. I learned a lot about teamwork, cooperation, communication and most importantly about engineering. Working hands-on on a project that required me to apply knowledge about wiring and electronics as I was learning was a really fun experience and I'm really thankful that our group produced one of the best vehicles in our mission category!
My strongest faculty connection here at UMD is with Professor Bensi of the RISE Labs here on campus. I'm working with Professor Bensi on one of her ongoing research projects regarding nuclear power plants. It's interesting work and I'm glad to have the opportunity to be able to work on things like this. I approached Professor Bensi when I saw her listing on the UMD Undergraduate Research Database and I started our collaboration by just sending her an email telling her that I was intersted in working with her. After hearing stories about how some of my friends approached professors for research opportunities, I think this is honestly the best way to go about it. The worst thing that can possibly happen is that one of the people you reach out to for work responds to you saying that they aren't looking for anybody to work under them at the moment so your stakes aren't very high. If you're lucky, you could end up with a very useful contact and in a very interesting line of work.
One of the best things about my experience so far in UMD is to have been able to meet friends. I'm really thankful to have a good friend group and I really love spending time with the people I've met here on campus. Having friends is also really important in classes where the professors are not as competent as you might like. This is because you will need to have people you can study with or even just ask for help with homework if you need. I always thought that studying with other people in classes that are difficult to understand wouldn't be very helpful but I found that grinding out problem sets for my Differential Equations class or even just discussing how to approach physics problems really improved my understanding in those classes.
Another development regarding friends is that I am really excited about moving in with some of my friends in an apartment next semester. It's rare to find people you get along with well enough to want to move in and so I'm really looking forward to this experience.
In retrospect, I was not nearly prepared for how difficult college was going to be. I knew coming in as a computer engineering major that I was going to have a lot of work, but the absolute magnitude of work that I was swamped with right from my very first class was something I wasn't at all prepared to handle. Even now, after a full year, I'm just starting to figure out how to handle the workload and continue to learn the material. It's a really delicate balance of learning how to learn things quickly, how to manage time, how to prioritize your work and how to make sure you're staying healthy outside of classes.
Spring semester taught me lots of things and I'm glad to have been able to experience them all! Computer engineering is a really entertaining major and I look forward to a productive sophomore year.