Prof. Dwarkadas v. Northwestern

Let's go back in time to yesterday. 

Lindsay and I had the most relaxing walk to class. For the first time in a while, there was no need to sprint across campus. In class, there was a long lecture by Prof. Kron that varied greatly in subject. He even went into the history about physics discoveries and a lot of students started falling asleep. 

Prof. Dwarkadas in the middle

After lunch things brightened up. There was a guest speaker, Vikram Dwarkadas, who was a professor at UChicago. He first walked around, asking each of us what our projects were on. While doing that, he somehow heard that I had transferred from a law class, and he just laughed and said, "Why? Lawyers earn more money. You should have stayed." For some reason, that was one of the funniest things I had heard all day. 

He then gave a great presentation that kept all of us awake, which, trust me, is a huge feat. We are all sleep-deprived teens that can sleep anywhere. After the presentation, I wanted to take a picture with him, so I dragged Nikita and Lindsay along. That conversation then went from us making fun of Nikita to Prof. Dwarkadas trying to convince me to apply to UChicago. I had forgotten that Northwestern and UChicago are rivals and accidentally blurted out that I was only applying to Northwestern between the two. That was a big oops moment because the professor looked ready to fight and pull out facts on how his school was the superior one. He even showed off the Bollywood dance teams at UChicago to prove how much better they were. 

Between that random conversation, the professor also told us that he had went to IIT in India for college. For those who don't know, IIT is a very, very prestigious school for learning engineering and physics. I thought that was so great because I have considered trying to apply there before. He told us that the atmosphere there was very supportive. Everyone was always ready to help pick you up if you made some terrible decisions, and they would all stay up partying before they began studying. He advised us to always remember that in the end it really doesn't matter what you do as long as you end up doing all your work and carrying out all your responsibilities. 

I think I made a pun and Nikita did not approve

This conversation somehow ended up lasting almost 2 hours. Lindsay and I were able to head back to the dorms just ten minutes before dinner started, which was great because we were both starving. Kara and Lindsay then convinced me to come to the gym with them, and it was surprisingly pretty fun. Unfortunately, when I headed back I just couldn't have a productive time. I fell asleep meaning to wake up in a few hours, but instead ended up oversleeping. 

This then led to the beginning of today. We were on a field trip to Fermilab, a research center for neutrinos. The first half of the tour was mostly on particle physics and the different types of neutrinos and quarks discovered. 

Fermilab from outside

The second half was what mostly caught my attention. We toured a warehouse where particle accelerators were engineered. Every aspect of the building process intrigued me. Specifically, the electrical aspect. The engineer told us that the titanium plates near each other wanted to repel as electricity was spread into them, and so they all had to be bolted very tightly together. He also told us about how the power was taken from a large capacitor in the warehouse. I thought it was very funny when I asked him what the capacitor was made of and he responded saying it was a metal plate with an insulator in between. That was basically the definition of a capacitor and I had told him that I had read of that exactly but was curious what material the insulator was. But after asking that about three times in different ways, he repeated in three different ways that it was an insulator. Lindsay and I just found it funny that he didn't admit he didn't know what material was, or even fake knowing it. 

That interest today reminded me of how Jordan suggested that I should select Electrical Engineering as my major since it had the right amount of hardware and software for me. I have some time until I am pressured to click a check box for my major, but I think I am getting closer to what I want to study. 

After coming back, and having the usual schedule with dinner, I went back to my dorm to finish all the work I had. Kara then barged in, as usual. Lindsay and I screamed at her, as usual, telling her not to come back in because we had too much work. But of course, as usual, she barged back in about 20 minutes later. I decided that the whole 4th floor just had too many distractions so I decided to ask David for his room key and work there, since it's far, far, away from the 4th floor. I can gladly say that it has shown to be a pretty productive strategy. 

Random picture of Michelle barging into my room screaming  she found an extra pair of socks