Considering that I had never swung a golf club prior to taking this class, it has easily become one of my favorite classes. At first, I could hardly hit a ball 100 yards without it hooking wide right or left, but now I consider myself not too shabby. Golf now has become a hobby of mine and now I look forward to this class during the week. On a sunny day, nothing seems more relaxing than just hitting golf balls into the green.

My plan for the past couple of weeks has been to not stress myself out too much, and relax as much as possible. Of course I'm doing a lot of studying and preparation. I am confident of my abilities as a student, but sometimes insecurities pop in. I am staying very positive, and I know all my hard work will pay off. It would be nice to pass the exam the first time! My final quarter is very exciting and is full millions of possibilities! Can't wait for 5 pm on April 14th, when I'm done with the FE exam so I can go back to enjoying my quarter!

For my senior design class, there are two options: working on a bridge or a building. I have decided to go with the bridge design option since I will most likely get into that when I graduate and get into the work force. The senior design class is something I have been waiting for since sophomore year, and even though it's going to be very stressful and full of work, it marks the end of my undergraduate journey, and that's more than enough for me.

As of right now there hasn’t been too much of a workload from my classes so it gives me time to focus on other things, such as figuring out what to do once I graduate. Like most senior students, I saw myself graduating, getting a job into the real world. But last quarter I was approached by Dr. Chang, (Hydraulics/Hydrology professor) with an offer to go to graduate school right here at OU. The offer pays for my tuition for graduate school and also provides me with a nice stipend.

Of course, I have accepted the offer and began to do research last quarter for Dr. Chang. This research consisted of finding the amount of suspended solids that are in the Hocking River. The samples that are obtained from the river are given to another student and me, and we put the samples in a pump that extracts the water. The suspended solids are left behind in a fiberglass filter. Then the filter is placed in the oven to remove all the water in the filter before weighing it and recording the data.

Now, I’m back in Athens and I feel better than I’ve ever felt. I’m taking six classes and a lab, but I’m not as stressed out as I used to be in the Fall Quarter. At this point, I’ve figured that I’m going to graduate in about five months so I need to do my very best. I’m taking Timber Design, Concrete Design, Wastewater Treatment, Experimental Methods, and Structural Theory II. They’re all pretty much related and I’m actually interested in all those classes so I have a feeling it’s going to be an awesome quarter!

I’m also working on research with two different teachers and also working on my grad school application. It’s busy, but it’s a good kind of busy, so I’m content. It’s my time to shine!

The first class project is in CE 471, which is Foundation Design. My group and I just completed an assignment on why we chose to use deep foundations instead of a shallow foundation. We spent more than 12 hours on it and we’re finally done!

The other project is in CE 450 (Water Treatment). This has been, by far, one of the most intriguing classes I’ve taken at OU. We’ve been talking all quarter about water; how it goes from the brownish color you see in Rivers, to the clear water that flows from our taps. Our class went to visit the Columbus Water Treatment Plant, and this made me greatly appreciate all the work we’d been doing all quarter. All I have to do now is apply all that I saw at the plant to my project and I’m sure we’re going to do a great job. Whew! All I can say is I’m ready for a long break from school.

The OVSC (Ohio Valley Student Conference) is the yearly competition that our ASCE organization is involved in. This competition is broken down into several sub-competitions which include a steel bridge, concrete canoe, surveying, AutoCAD, environmental, and an ethics essay competitions. I am currently working on the steel bridge team where we design and construct a bridge based on specifications given by the OVSC. At the competition our bridge will compete with nine other universities' bridges, where the bridges are judged based on construction time, deflection, weight, aesthetics, side sway, and total load capacity.

I have really enjoyed being a part of this organization for these past four years. It is a good way to meet people in your major and be a part of some friendly competition with other universities here in Ohio. I would recommend joining ASCE especially to all of the incoming civil engineering students.

My fall quarter has kept me busy with the design project and all of my other classes. The fall quarter senior design is to create a subdivision, from one of the parcels of land that Ohio University. But I am not alone in this design course because we are put in groups of five. We start out by surveying our land and creating a topographic map. Once we obtain the map we can layout our road, grade our lots, layout sanitary and storm sewer pipes, construct a detention basin. On top of the entire layout, we must also be able to estimate the cost of our project.

After ten weeks of getting our project together we must print out all of our plans and calculations; we must also have written explanations on how we came up with our design. Then our group has to present our finished product to a panel of about six to eight professional engineers. They critique us on our project and from that our professor comes up with a final grade for us. This class requires a lot of work, but then again as an engineer: what class doesn’t?

I had an Electrical Engineering class with Dr. Douglas Lawrence and through that, developed a new appreciation for other classes outside the civil engineering discipline. The next one was a Chemical Engineering class with Dr. Darin Ridgway, which was a bit more challenging since I had to memorize more material, but I got through that too. The second half of the summer was filled with an English class that was concerned with the Arthurian Legend, and a math class covering Partial derivatives and Double Integrals.

After going through that many classes during the summer, as well as being an RA, I am definitely not rested enough for this fall quarter. However, all that hard work has paid off since I am going to get to graduate on time, and I learned a lot of new material outside the civil engineering discipline.