#catherine wang

[rbolick]

Books On Books Collection - Kitty Maryatt and Scripps College Students

Arch (2010) Arch (2010)Kitty Maryatt, Jenny Karin Morrill, Ali Standish, Alycia Lang, Jennifer Wineke, Mandesha Marcus, Catherine Wang, Kathryn Hunt, Ilse Wogau, Jennifer Cohen and Winnie DingAcrylic slipcase, leporello formed of self-covering booklets sewn together. Slipcase: H410 x W110 x D50. Leporello: H400 x W 90 mm (closed). 64 pages. Unnumbered copy from edition of 109. Acquired from…

View On WordPress

[uscdornsifeadmission]

The ONE Archives: A Hidden Gem At USC - Catherine Wang

On West Adams Boulevard, just a few blocks from campus, is a red brick building that houses the largest repository of LGBTQ materials in the world – USC Libraries’ ONE Archives. ONE Archives was founded in 1952, and according to their website, they “currently house over two million archival items including periodicals, books, film, video and audio recordings, photographs, artworks, organizational records, and personal papers.”

During the last week of class, I took a field trip there with Professor Sunyoung Park and my classmates from EALC 430: Gender and Sexuality in Korean Literature and Culture. The eight of us got a fascinating private tour from Joseph Hawkins, the director of the Archives and professor of anthropology and gender studies. Joseph gave us a brief history of LGBTQ activism in Los Angeles, and recounted crazy anecdotes from the many years he has spent as director of ONE (The archives used to receive materials that were illegal at the time, and even today, seeing the collections can be a very emotional experience for many LGBTQ visitors.). Joseph also explained the difference between a library and an archive: while libraries contain secondary sources (such as analyses and commentaries), archives hold primary sources, which are texts or visual items from that particular time period, such as magazines and activists’ posters.

We concluded our trip with some tonkatsu ramen at Ebaes, a popular Japanese restaurant a few minutes’ walk from the archives (our lunch was sponsored by the East Asian Languages and Cultures department)! Another shameless plug: if you’re at all interested, you should strongly consider taking a class in the EALC and/or Gender Studies departments, both of which are super interdisciplinary and inclusive, and you’ll get to meet the warmest people.

[uscdornsifeadmission]

A Guide To Attending Research Conferences - Catherine Wang 

Something you may have heard about USC is how easy it is for undergraduates to participate in research, even beginning in their freshman year. But something that’s less discussed is how you can attend conferences to present your research! Here’s a quick guide on what research conferences are, how to apply to them, and why they’re awesome:

1) What happens at undergraduate research conferences, and why should I go?

There’s a misconception that research is kind of an antisocial activity, but part of the research process is to communicate your findings and incorporate feedback from other researchers, and there is no better place to do that than at conferences! These are usually weekend-long events that include a lineup of researchers who present their work in slideshows or poster sessions. It’s a great way to boost your communication skills; you learn how to present your work to professors as well as fellow undergrads and how to deal with their constructive criticism.

Besides the academic aspect, a conference is also a wonderful opportunity to make friends! Every now and then I run into students from other schools that I met at earlier conferences, and we try to keep in touch.

2) What kinds of conferences have you been to?

I do pyscholinguistics research as a research assistant at USC’s Language Processing Lab, and I’m currently working on independent research about how people interpret subjective adjectives. I’ve presented my work at a couple of conferences for undergrads: at Michigan State University, the University of Toronto, and UCLA. Although these events were specifically for linguistics students, there are many conferences dedicated to other disciplines (my pre-med friend recently attended one on dance and medicine!).

The applications for these kinds of events are released several months in advance (you apply by submitting an abstract describing your work), and it’s best to apply to multiple ones because conferences can be very selective. However, even if you don’t get accepted, you can always attend to listen to others’ presentations, make friends, and get advice about applying to graduate school. 

Another more accessible option is attending USC’s annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, where students present their work from the sciences, social sciences, arts, and other fields. This is a great conference to just walk through casually, so you can check out what research looks like in a bunch of different subjects.

3) Is it possible to get funding for conference travel?

Absolutely! Travels costs can seem daunting, but USC has a couple different options for funding flight expenses: Undergraduate Student Government (USG) has a fund for students or clubs traveling to conferences, Academic Honors & Fellowships’ (AHF) just established a Conference Presentation Fund, and you could also look into funding from your specific department. (Also, use the Student Universe website for discounted airplane tickets!)

A lot of conferences also make arrangements for you to stay the night free of charge – in Michigan I stayed in a MSU student’s room, and in Toronto I stayed in a sociolinguistics professor’s lovely house (pictured above!).

Even if you aren’t a research assistant, you can speak with your professor and turn one of your final projects into a conference submission. Conferences are an awesome way to reward yourself for all the hard work that you do in and out of class!

[dribbblepopular]

Accommodation 014/100 http://ift.tt/2oqy7Gq

[dribbblepopular]

FitMe Finalizing http://ift.tt/2nmwvwq

[uscdornsifeadmission]

Catch Me Outdoors How Bout Dat - Catherine Wang

As you walk through the Involvement Fair each semester, every club will try to convince you that they’re worth joining – it can be pretty overwhelming, in a good way. The summer before freshman year, I was scrolling through the endless list of clubs at USC, and one in particular leapt out at me: Peaks and Professors! It’s a club that matches up groups of students with a professor, and then they take you to nearby hiking destinations. All you do is sign up on the website and pay a small fee, and then you’re treated to three of the best opportunities USC has to offer: the chance to talk to a really interesting professor, meet fellow students whom you might never have met otherwise, and explore the outdoor paradise that is Southern California (the LA area is much more than a concrete jungle).

First off: as someone who is hardly an athlete, I’ve never felt like the hikes were too challenging. Trust me, I am quite a potato – there’s a gym on my floor at Troy East, but I still regularly come up with excuses to avoid it. When Peaks and Professors releases a wave of trip offerings (they usually release multiple trips in “waves” about twice a semester, due to the high demand), they offer easy, moderate, and difficult (and even overnight!) hikes, so you’ll never feel like you’re signing up for something too hard or too easy for your taste.

I’ve done two hikes this school year: one to Solstice Canyon in Malibu last semester, and one this semester to San Vicente Peak (off Mulholland Drive). The Solstice Canyon hike boasts views of the Pacific and a waterfall at the end (although it was a trickle thanks to the drought), and San Vicente Peak has a defunct Cold-War era missile control site at the top. The hills at San Vicente were beautifully green this time of year, now that the drought’s getting better.

The first time around, I signed up with three other friends, but for my last trip, I decided to sign up by myself, hoping that I could make friends once I got there. I’m more on the quiet side so I didn’t expect to make a lot of friends right away, but that’s exactly what happened. There’s something about hiking with a group of strangers that genuinely brings you together. And of course, the professors are so fascinating to talk to. This last hike was led by Professor Narayanan, a professor of electrical engineering, linguistics, and a few other things. I got to talk to him about my major, computational linguistics, and also hear about his tips for where else to hike in the area!

[dribbblepopular]

Workout Profile Page http://ift.tt/2kfN1dh

[uscdornsifeadmission]

What Really Matters - Catherine Wang

 Sophomore year so far has been really rough. My lighter schedule last year gave me time to wander, in terms of exploring new things in and out of the classroom. While I feel more settled down this semester, I’ve taken on a lot more, and sometimes it feels like I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. I’m trying to balance harder coursework, a research position, a part-time job, and an editor position for an online magazine. It’s been rough, but the point I want to make in this post is simple: you can be challenging yourself in a really rewarding way, even if that means that you don’t end up with straight A’s.

I entered college as an English major, since reading and writing have always been my passion and strong suit, but I also knew that I wanted to explore other disciplines. I’ll spare you the details, but many major/minor changes later, my path looks pretty different: I recently decided to major in Computational Linguistics (a new Dornsife major that just opened up last year!) and double-minor in English and East Asian Area Studies. Whenever I tell people I’m majoring in Computational Linguistics, their reaction is almost always, “What is that…?”, to which I respond, “To be honest, I don’t really know yet.”

I took two linguistics classes last year and loved them, and I also started learning how to code last semester, so my decision to choose this major is more a reflection of where I want to be, rather than what I already know I’m good at. I think there’s this general perception that you should major in what you enjoy and what you’re good at, but I’ve realized in the past few months that my goal is a little different – I’m studying what I want to be better at. 

Since I had a relatively free summer, I had a lot of time to be reflective, and I realized that even though I don’t know where I’m headed yet career-wise, I’m sure about what I want to get better at: coding, linguistics, writing, and Chinese. When I broke it down into these goals, my four-year academic plan became a lot clearer. I’m having trouble keeping up in my computer science classes this semester, especially because almost all of the other students are engineering majors qualified to be in Viterbi in the first place, while I just recently hopped aboard. But within the grand scheme of my larger goals, I’ve accepted that struggling at my own pace is okay – after all, I’m a much stronger coder than I was when I began. More importantly, I’m proving to myself bit by bit that I can take on a subject which used to terrify me.

This new perspective is a recent turning point for me. I can continue to study topics that excite me, but I’m more convinced than ever that my goal is not to get straight A’s (although those are nice!). Instead, I value being better than I was the day before. To the prospective students and friends who read this, I hope I’m not coming off as preachy – this is just a really important realization for me. And maybe like me, you’ve been struggling in and out of class, wondering if what you’re doing is worth it. This is my way of justifying that it IS worth it.