Hello readers!

It has been far too long, my apologies! I just haven’t thought of anything particularly exciting to blog about!

April marked the switch from working mainly on courses to starting research full time, and it has definitely been a change! I have been taking courses for so long that its pretty easy to know what I need to do in order to do well.  Go to class, do the assignments, study for the midterm etc and I will be fine.   Research unfortunately hasn’t followed this formula..

It has, at least in my case, felt a lot more like having a job.  I have a specific device I have to design, and its my ability to make that happen that is judged instead of my answers to hypothetical questions.  The work therefore feels a lot more rewarding than doing assignments that eventually get filed away and likely never look at again.

On the other hand, the major difference from a job has been that I’m the only person working on my project.  With the exception of weekly meetings with my supervisors, I’m kind of alone to come up with something that will work.  As far as I know it is like this for everyone in my program, and makes sense since, but is the toughest part.  I’m sure it is a really good thing for me in that I’m gaining a lot more confidence in making decisions without feeling the need to check with teammates or colleagues.   But having a person to talk things through with and to catch each others mistakes or build on ideas makes things feel like they go a lot faster and is a lot more fun!

I have, however, really enjoyed working relatively regular hours; coming in at 7:30 and leaving around 4:30 is great!  Studying for a midterm while a bunch of your working friends can feel pretty lame.

My project is definitely in an early prototyping stage, but once things become a little more concrete I will post some pictures on here!

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