As my first academic year comes to a close, I have learned a lot in my education as well as my personal capabilities. Being an aerospace engineering student requires a lot of “weed-out STEM classes.” These classes have taught me a lot of the base knowledge I need for the rest of my major, and have forced me to learn better study skills.
With such a wide variety of offered courses at UMD, I have a lot of opportunities to learn from many areas. Three classes surprised me the most this past year. The main thing that surprised me about these three classes was how engaging and fun they were. The first class was “The Aerospace Engineering Profession” ENAE100, which required students to take on a mentor, work on a group project with the mentor and other students, and then present my project to the class as well as judges. My group made a payload that would fly up to 100,000 feet into the air to make ice cream, which it did. I made some great friends from this project. The second class was “Mechanics I” ENES102, which required students to create a truss bridge that withstands as much force as possible. It was quite fun to build the truss and optimize it as much as possible, and then watch it break. Finally, the third class was “Intro to Engineering” ENES100, which requires students to create an over-terrain vehicle that can perform a specific task, as well as reach the end of the arena autonomously. This class is super involved and requires a lot of iteration and testing which really helps students grasp the fundamentals of engineering and what to expect in the future. It's so much fun to see the robot fail and fix those issues one by one. All three of these classes are required for my major, but ENES100 is available to any major, which I highly recommend.
UMD is a large campus with a lot of faculty. I have befriended a couple of professors and other faculty members. My greatest success in befriending faculty is through the Balloon Payload Program(BPP), with Dr. Mary Bowden. I initially met her in ENAE100, where she oversaw and made sure all of the student mentors were working efficiently and getting to know the students so that the payloads would be launched in November. I then joined BPP in my spring semester to work on another payload, where I got to talk with Dr. Bowden and developed my friendship with her throughout the semester, as we ran into each other at the lab every so often. I even asked her to be my mentor for the Aspire Research Program this upcoming summer, to which she said yes! Any incoming freshmen who want to develop friendships with faculty members, I recommend you go to simply make it a habit to talk to them often and be friendly with them. Eventually they’re gonna remember you and if you show passion and willingness to get work done, you can ask them to be your mentor, or for recommendation letters, but most importantly, you get to have another friend.
Adjusting to the new environment at UMD has been tough academically-wise, but easy friendship-wise. I have had a tough time forcing myself to attend my classes (which I highly recommend you do), it is important to try in your classes. Making friends in the first week of classes is pretty important, it will help you make study groups for finals, and give you more of a reason to attend class.
Looking back on my first year, I see in retrospect that I was least prepared for the importance of maintaining a sleep schedule. It’s so easy to get caught up in doing work and then hanging out with friends for so long that you forget to sleep at a good time. Even though some of my most memorable moments with friends have been late at night, I did feel pretty bad the next morning having to wake up for my 9 AM classes. I will say that if you are able to deal with sleep deprivation well, then hang out with friends as late as you want. But to most people it is better to sleep properly so that the work gets done.
Overall, I would say that I had a great first year of college. It had a lot of memorable moments, I made some great friends, and I got to participate in some enjoyable classes.