Welcome back everyone! In complete honesty, I do not have a solid plan for what this blog will be about… Because what else is there to say? Much of the past blogs before mine have gone into deep detail about surviving possibly the hardest course in Sem 2 (ELECTENG/COMPSYS 209: See here for a great overview of the course), most past and present blogs have been going into Internship advice, and I don’t feel the depression that I should when it came to taking Electrical (It’s a rite of passage for any Engineering student, if I’m completely honest).
My current thoughts (No, not the smart ones)
The first thing I thought about when coming back to Week 7 and 8 was… not a lot… The sense of panic and urgency I feel in writing down anything useful for the future students isn’t really there for me currently; I’m just going with the punches that are coming up for the next couple of weeks.
So far, the only thing that has been flagged were some upcoming deadlines for the 209 project, including creating a schematic for the PCB that we will be putting together. (Flexing that I managed to create all of it in less than 2 days when they mentioned it takes at least a week!) Another thing coming up is a 209 test that is mostly coding which has been stated (by asking around) to be more difficult than the first test.
Now, I must lay down that it was a horrendous first test; class average was about 50% across both Electrical and Computer System students (and maybe some stray Programmers, but I don’t really know). I myself was one of the majority in that region. My feelings on it? I just shrugged without thinking on it and thought to myself that “this is not really a surprise.” (considering the difficulty of the Electrical course). It definitely tanks my whole grade for the course, but I never really thought that highly of myself to consider chasing that A grade.
“… To be honest, it Hertz.”
Circling back around to the punchline (in the title too, just in case you forgot the gimmick on my posts), it’s a lot like fumbling around with electrical components in a lab; you just screw around and find out. The more you screw around, the more you find out the consequences of it. Moved a 5V supply to ground and shorted the circuit? It might blow the USB connected to the PCB attached (This is definitely something I didn’t do at one point…). You might panic a little, screwing around a little more until you find a simple solution (in the hypothetical scenario, it was restarting the computer) that fixes the damages.
…Though I think that’s a bit of a simple approach. I think it’s about high time I get to do some deep thinking as an exercise (maybe put my philosophy books to use for once.)
Sidetrack time: The Art of Kintsugi
…Maybe think of it more like Kintsugi; the Japanese art of repairing a broken pottery with a special lacquer (aka a shiny finish made from tree sap painted on pottery and metal) which is mixed with silver and/or gold. Ever seen or heard of it?
The Japanese philosophy behind this art is that of wabi-sabi: the finished product embraces all the imperfections that came before it broke; the parts that came before it started to show wear, tears, and cracks in their months, years of use. It’s practically showcased and illuminated proudly.
This art is also related to the Japanese philosophy of Mushin; encompassing the concepts of no attachment and accepting changes.
….Mushin is often literally translated as “no mind,” but carries connotations of fully existing within the moment, of non-attachment, of equanimity amid changing conditions... The vicissitudes of existence over time, to which all humans are susceptible, could not be clearer than in the breaks, the knocks, and the shattering to which ceramic ware too is subject...
— Christy Bartlett, Flickwerk: The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics
So I accidentally turned this into a self-reflection oops
In a turnabout of a near existential crisis, I did have something to say regarding advice! Take it from someone who, truthfully, tanked a lot of grades because of the simple mentality that I just needed to pass; that “Cs get Degrees in the end”. I still stand by this mindset… though not to this extreme; It’s never the end of the world if you are out of reach of that A+ grade or get frustrated that you don’t have a higher grade than what you have studied for. A lot of the time, what we are studying now would sometimes change down the line. We have plenty of years to explore what works best for us!
Even now, I still have so much to experience before settling down and getting into the real world of more opportunities. I never truly strayed from the path of the Electrical, but I have been told that even then we can still have opportunities in Computer Sciences, Programming, and even branching out to other departments outside of ESCE. It’s not the end for you if you ever did fall in your course; take some other opportunities if you never feel it work out the first time around.
Take your time with it; be proud that you even made it this far in the first place!
That’s about it for a lengthy blog that turned into a self-reflection… Anything technical I should have talked about just wasn’t with me for the first couple weeks back, unfortunately. At the very least, I hope this post shows that there is no such thing as failure in the world of Electrical (though in the form of a completely unrelated art form with a shaky electrical metaphor at best). I hope that my next blog would remedy this and be on track with my specialization, though.
It’s great to be able to get this far with everyone! Read the others’ blogs as well and see how they have been doing; no doubt that all of them have been busy. I’ll see you all next time!
–Lanna Lagasca