Highlights - Week 11

Sunday, August 30 - Saturday, September 5
SURVIVED THE FIRST WEEK OF FULL ON CRAZINESS. NUTELLA. DROPPED COURSE.

Week 11 was my first week of the semester, which meant it was my first week of classes, work and workouts. It was without a doubt a rough week. I woke up EVERY morning by 4 am. Most nights I'd go to bed by 11 pm. Like I had anticipated, sleep is going to be a rough one to maintain. Over the weekend I was able to catch up on sleep, but the weekend always seems to fly by faster than I can handle. Make it slow down...please.

This week's cheat meal dessert sent me over the edge, CINNAMON SUGAR NUTELLA CRESCENT ROLLS! Urrrrmahgosh!!! They were so good...ugh...just great! I ate 1 (or 4) too many, so that was bad. On top of that I had too much of my cheat meal (spaghetti). So I need to work on that. Definitely can't let that happen again. I ate so much my stomach physically hurt from the amount of food inside of it. I had to lay down. I'm serious. It wasn't good...but it was good. Know what I'm saying?! Regardless, I can't over indulge like that on future cheat meals. It's not good for my progress and my mental state. =P

 I ended up dropping one of the courses I was orginally registered for. The course instructor and I weren't in agreement on project topics, and since I technically don't need the course right now, I decided to drop it and wait until next semester. Hopefully at that point I can work on a project I genuinely care about and produce something I'm thoroughly proud of. Fingers crossed that works out! I added an online course, which is great because that gives me 3 extra hours during the week because I don't physically have to sit in class. All in all, I think the change was a good move, especially for the goals of this semester. We'll see if I made the right decision soon enough!!!

3 week progress update is coming soon!! It'll have some "transformation pics" in there, so for those of you that have been asking...it's coming! Week 10 is upon me. Almost done. I can't believe how quickly time has passed, 1/3 of the way there. Ahhhh!! O_o

What's a Systems Engineer?

"LARGE-SCALE PROBLEM SOLVER"

That's the easiest definition to share with peole who haven't a clue of what a systems engineer is. That was the defintion a keynote speaker shared at one of the conferences I attended in undergrad and it's stuck with me ever since. Pretty simple and accurate in my opinion, but of course there's more to it then that. There always is.

Systems engineers are responsible for design, development and management of engineering systems throughout the duration of their existence (i.e. lifecycle). A system is defined as a combination of people, places,  and/or things  that together produce a result that they alone could not produce. For example, a car is a system. One of its components is an engine. By itself,  an engine can't do much, but when integrated with a car frame, gears, wiring, etc. an engine powers the car (one hopes). Systems engineering involves A LOT of integration amidst multiple fields of engineering, analysis and finance. There's overlap galore.

GMU '14 BSSE Graduates

Some systems engineers have one or more technical specialties that allow them the ability to further understand complex systems. For example, a systems engineer with a background in computer science should be able to better understand the software compenents of a system. Most systems engineers that I know of go into industry as analysts or project manangers and that ultimately suits my career goals.

So there you have my "off the cuff" definition of Systems engineering. Hopefully I didn't miss anything major. If I did I'm sure my engineering friends will let me know and I'll make the appropriate adjustments. But, I think this definition will suit most. Stay tuned to learn more once the semester starts because I genuinely love this major!