Waiting to hear Speaker of The House, Nancy Pelosi speak at Smith College! I was selected by lottery as one of the 500 students, staff, and faculty who would be allowed to attend in person. Honestly, it’s a little nerve wracking to be in such a large crowd. But my seat neighbors are quite nice; everyone is masked and vaccinated; and the excitement is just about winning out over my nerves. Seriously, I’m totally a political nerd. Ever since I was a kid on Cape Cod in Kennedy-land! This is almost as exciting for me as a rock concert!!!! I have a lot of disagreements with Speaker Pelosi’s politics. But there’s no denying she’s a powerhouse and a trail blazing woman in politics. This should be very interesting! #trans #adventurer #politics #politician #nancypelosi #smithcollege #smithie #politicalnerd #masked #ᴠᴀᴄᴄɪɴᴇssᴀᴠᴇʟɪᴠᴇs (at Smith College) https://www.instagram.com/p/CTlFA6RHUlh/?utm_medium=tumblr
I just wrote out basically the entirety of this post, and then refreshed the page by instinct and lost everything. Lesson learned: save your posts as drafts consistently. Here we go again!
I’ve noticed a few more of you around here since my last post, and whether you’re current/prospective/not Smithies, I’d love to hear from y’all! My ask box is always open, same with my PMs. Like many of us, I’ll take almost any form of human interaction during these dystopian times.
Anyway, classes! Today is the Monday of my second week of classes, and I realized I hadn’t made a post about my first week of classes! Important context before I get there, though, is that so far throughout this pandemic, I haven’t really been able to just sit down and focus on my classes; there was always something else more urgent, whether it be Trump trying to deport all international students (a scare that happened twice over the summer!), me coming out to my parents, or dealing with some pretty terrible personal stuff towards the end of 2020.
I’m not saying this as an ‘oh my life is SO hard’ but as a way to show the reasons for which I was feeling like I was slipping on my academics. And so, I knew that going into my fourth Smith semester (that feels unreal to type, woah), I wanted/needed to change something, for my own mental stability.
For me, this ended up being a commitment to attending as many classes as possible (progress update: I’ve only slept through two morning classes! working on it), leaving my camera on for more than 95% of the time, as well as participating in all the ways I can: answering questions as often as possible, being active in Slack, Piazza, etc.
Something I’ve found REALLY helpful in the process has been something that I’ve personally known about for ages: the pomodoro technique (work cycles of 25 minutes followed by 5 minute breaks, and no more than 4 sessions consecutively). I haven’t really used this method previously because I had the skewed belief that my Romanian high school education cultivated in me: you just need to hammer away at a task, not getting up from your desk, until it’s done. Pair that with my previously untreated ADHD, and it suddenly makes sense why I was struggling (other than the whole, y’know, pandemic thing or whatever).
The most pressing deadline I have at the moment is a video project for Smith’s My Global Story event. It was technically due yesterday, but I was thankfully able to get an extension because I wasn’t quite done with it. I might upload it either here or on YouTube afterwards, but that’s a problem for future me to figure out.
Lastly, one thing I was considering recently is starting the 100 days of productivity challenge; I wouldn’t be aiming to do it every single day for the next 100 days, but to have it finished by the end of the calendar year. Maybe COVID will be done by then, huh?
Last Friday to celebrate the end of the year and help everyone de-stress from finals, Smith brought in a mini petting zoo on Chapin Lawn! There were bunnies, goats, sheep, a pig, an alpaca, lots of different birds and more. A super friendly goat even jumped on my lap and I felt blessed! A wonderful way to end my first year at Smith :)
Hey guys! It has been a while since I’ve posted on here. Spring 2018 was a very busy semester, especially with me taking three stem courses at the same time which I have never done before.
Before the semester started, I traveled to Honduras for a week in January to do volunteer work as part of Smith College Global Medical Brigade. During this week, Smith volunteers and other college volunteers shadowed doctors in a clinic, interacted with community members, learned about the culture, and were part of a public health construction project.
This was such an amazing experience. I learned about the health care system in another country (the positive and negatives), how Global Brigades as an organization helps increase health care access to rural communities, I also got to shadow doctors and helped build a latrine for a family in need. More importantly, since Spanish is my first language, I got to talk to the community members, learn about their lives and interacted with the kids.
During the semester, there were a lot of cool things that happened.
In my genomes and genetics lab course, we got the chance to look at many things under a microscope; muscle cells, plant cells, and even my own chromosomes.
For my chromosomes, I had to use photoshop to cut them, pair them by size, organize them larger to smaller and put them into separate groups. Not gonna lie, it was a lot of work, especially the cutting out part, but in the end, it looked cool!
My friend and I have started a ritual of going on long walks after brunch every Sunday to reset for the new week. On our walk today, we just stopped, mid-conversation, to soak up the gorgeous late afternoon sky over downtown Northampton. I can confidently say that I will never get over the beauty of Western Mass.
A Complete List of Every Class I've Taken at Smith College
I've really taken advantage of the open curriculum at Smith, and it turns out that in my four years I've taken 41 Courses from 17 different departments!
Here is a complete list of every course I've taken at Smith (not including my summer abroad at Ewha Women's University.)
ARHJYA READING THE CITY OF PARIS
BIOJYA SCIENCES IN PARIS
BIOJYA SEMINAR:SCIENCES IN PARIS
CLT150 ART OF TRANSLATION
CSC102 HOW THE INTERNET WORKS
CSC111 INTRO COMP SCI TH PROGRAMMING
CSC212 PROGRAM WITH DATA STRUCTURES
CSC220 ADVANCED PROGRAMMING TECHNIQUE
CSC250 THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS
CSCJYA ALGORITHMS
CSC231 MICROPROCESSOR & ASSEMBLY LANG
CSC251 NETWORK SECURITY
CSC252 ALGORITHMS
CSC390 SEM: AI- NATURAL LANG UNDERSTA
DAN223 BALLET IV
ECO153 INTRODUCTORY MACROECONOMICS
EGR100 TOPC FOR EVERYONE-ENVIRONMENT
ESS945 PHYSICAL CON: PILATES MAT I
FRN220 HIGH INTERMEDIATE FRENCH
FRN230 COLQ: PARIS
FRN235 SPEAKING (LIKE THE) FRENCH
FRN252 FRENCH CINEMA: URBAN SPACES
FRN270 LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY
FRNJYA FRANCE AND ITS CONTEXTS
FRNJYA ADVANCED LANGUAGE I
FRNJYA ANALYZING CONTEMPORARY FRN THEATRE
FRN359A MAGIC WORDS
FRN392 SEM: TPCS/ CULTURE-STEREOTYPES
FYS142 REACTING TO THE PAST
GOV202 AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
HSTJYA CONTEMPORARY HISTORY
HSTJYA SECULARISM IN FRENCH SOCIETY
KOR101 KOREAN I
KOR102 KOREAN I
KOR201 KOREAN II
KOR202 KOREAN II
MTH112 CALCULUS II
MTH153 INTRO DISCRETE MATHEMATICS
PHI213A LOGIC
SDS192 INTRO TO DATA SCIENCES
SWG222 GENDER, LAW AND POLICY
This semester is my last semester at Smith College and here is what I am taking: (for a full list of all the classes I've taken while at Smith, click here)
KOR202: Korean II
This is the second installment of Korean II, the first of which I took last semester. I really enjoy learning Korean and wanted to continue my studies.
CSC251: Network Security
This class is new and taught by a visiting professor. I think security and privacy are really interesting and exigent topics and am excited to see how this class unfolds. This also fulfills my systems requirement for the computer science major.
CSC390: Seminar AI and Natural Language Understanding
I am taking this as my required seminar for the computer science major and I am really excited for it. I haven't had it yet, but based on the course summary I think that it aligns with my interests.
FRN259: Magic Words
This is a French seminar that I am taking at Amherst and the last course I need to finish my French major. From the reading they sent out, it seems like this will be a very interesting course.
