Fall 2017 in Review
And I’m back to the races with another update! Another good, long semester at Georgia Tech is behind me, filled with lots of fun fraternity events, plentiful weekends with Mackenzie, a little bit of personal development time, and even some studying. All in all, it was a great semester — let’s jump in!
Georgia Tech
This was my third-to-last semester at Tech (not sure if it’s fair to start counting down like that yet, but I’m going to do it). The semester wasn’t as crazy busy as last Fall’s, as I pulled out of a few of my big time commitments. Specifically, I’m no longer on MEC @ DU, having expired as the Social Chair, I’ve dropped from having the very time-consuming role of Assistant Director of Projects within TEAM Buzz to the basic role of Corporate Sponsorship, and, because (as I’ll get to) I accepted the return offer from APT, I didn’t have to apply for any internships! These three things made my life much easier this semester, and allowed me to focus on academics and add some more time to my part-time job.
I took six classes this semester. Time for the boring explanations of my classes for future me! Please, ignore this if you’re not interested. I won’t be offended.
- ISYE 3103 (Supply Chain: Logistics) — this one foused on the logistical trickiness of getting goods from point A to point B and required we know a bunch of different algorithms. It was somewhat-interesting, but the very good professor made it possibly my favorite class this semester. I got an A.
- ISYE 3044 (Simulation) — this class was a little more technical and dealt with a piece of software called Arena. We learned how to take any system and plug it into this software to simulate it so we could play around with it. It was pretty cool and the professor was super goofy. I got an A.
- ISYE 3025 (Engineering Economics) — this was a 1-credit class and was an absolute breeze. It was taught online and I only went in on test days. We learned about different types of interest and loans and all that good stuff. I got an A.
- ISYE 3039 (Quality Improvement) — this class was ridiculously, astoundingly boring. Thankfully, I took it with 4 friends of mine, making it more palatable. We learned about how to measure the quality of a system (like an assembly line) and then figure out what’s causing any defects. I got an A.
- CS 4400 (Intro to Databases) — my only non-ISYE class this semester, I enjoyed this one a lot. I learned a lot about databases and how they work, and built a website for the big project, which was really fun and educational. I got a B.
- ISYE 4800 (Pre-Senior Design Course) — this was a 0-credit course, but don’t let that confuse you — it was a lot of work. In anticipation of my capstone Senior Design class next semester, which deals with working as consultants for a company of our choice, we had to find a group to work with, a client, and a project. We eventually chose Coca-Cola, and will most likely be working on a project about designing a new factory. This class wasn’t for a grade.
I ended up with 4 As’s and 1 B , a pretty 3.8 GPA for the semester, and placing me safely in the 3.55+ GPA needed to graduate with Highest Honors next Fall. The work wasn’t crazy difficult, I learned a decent amount and met some new friends, and got the GPA I was hoping for. Academically, a successful semester!
Work
I kept up with the same work as last Fall. I’ve been working in the Main Office of the ISYE building doing clerical work for 10 bucks an hour. It pays fine for a mindless job, allows for plenty of idle hours when I can do homework, keeps me busy, and lets me interface with the ISYE professors when delivering packages and whatnot. I upped my hours from 12 last Fall to the maximum of 20 this semester, and intend to maintain that throughout the upcoming Spring. It helps to pay for living and fraternity expenses.
On top of the part-time work at ISYE, I developed a habit of stealing work assignments around the fraternity house, earning me a sum of about $900 over the course of the semester. All brothers in the fraternity are assigned chores to do (each will usually get 1 week per semester when they’re on duty), and if the chores aren’t done on a given day, they’re up for grabs and can be done by anyone for a $10 reward. I would prowl the halls of the fraternity at midnight, looking for unfinished assignments to steal. It ended up earning me quite a bit of cash, as well as making the house a lot cleaner!
Additionally, while this is no surprise, I ended up accepting APT’s internship return offer and will be heading back there this upcoming summer to work as a QAE intern once more. I’ll be in a completely different team (to be decided) and am excited to work with my friends from last summer to see where I’ll fit best!
The Rest
Outside of academics and work, believe it or not, there was actually more that I did! Most of these include fraternity events or times with Mackenzie. Here’s a brief list:
- Intern Reunion back in DC w/ APT (friends seeing Kevin Durant, dancing)
- Fun Beach Weekend in Panama City Beach (making fajitas over charcoal, hanging out with Joe & BBL’s, testing the hot sauces, Grant being mad that we were in the attic)
- Homecoming (being the only young guy with the old alum both at Neighbors and the pho place, Hayden’s bloody marys, Dova & Sohan wrecking havoc on Polstra’s shrimp)
- Semiformal in Athens (fun with Mackenzie and dancing!)
- Showering in front of the house in Hurricane Irma
- Snow days (drive-by-snowballing in Phil’s truck, snowball fight with Odds vs. Evens)
- Atlanta United playoff game & great seats at Hawks game courtesy of Phil
- Great Thanksgiving break visiting family in Minnesota (Anna’s crazy four boys, size difference b/t Jeremy and Grandma, fun @ brewery and distillery)
- Family-filled winter break (seeing Mackenzie’s grandparents & Conner/Sarah, NYE at Brian’s with all the friends, movies, trivia @ CFCC, HQ, Lemon song)
Projects
My one big project I’ve been working on this semester (that I mentioned at the end of my Summer 2017 in Review) has really come to fruition over winter break. It’s a web app that, despite originally being built with C#, now uses Python’s Flask microframework, MySQL as the database, and plenty of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
I have learned a ton about web development through this project. I came in with no formal knowledge and can now say I’m very comfortable with HTML and CSS, am quickly learning JS (mastering ajax is next), and am feeling really good about Python. The project is progressing every day, and I’m really excited about it.
The web app is travel-based, and allows users to create an account and view a multitude (currently 207) of different destinations around the world (all researched by me). The destinations have tags on them (“Adventure”, “UNESCO”, “Buddhist”, etc.), and based on original interests on sign-up, as well as the user’s Favorited” or “Explored”, the website will be able to suggest destinations to the user.
This website will be less for actually logistically learning about potential travel destinations, and more about feeding the wanderlust of its travel-hungry users with a large and pretty living space of potential spots around the world. While each destination has a dedicated page, it only includes a brief description and a map of where the destination is located. I have no huge interest in deploying this project to the public, but I expect to so I can learn how that process works. For me, it’s both a place to organize all the places I’ve been and want to go, as well as just a great tool for learning about web dev.
Goals
Now for the fun stuff! Not only is this the end of a semester and therefore time to review my 4-month goals, but it’s also the end of the year and time to look over my 2017 goals!
Goal Review
Let’s start with this past semester:
- Minimum GPA of 3.55: Check! I finished the semester with a 3.8.
- Maintain working out on a normal basis: Nope. Unfortunately, while I wasn’t crazy busy and pulling late nights, the time commitment of 20 hours/week at work had working out really difficult, and it dropped off a few weeks into school. If I made it a priority I could have achieved this goal, but I didn’t.
- Read two books: Nope. I’m pretty disappointed about this one, as I think reading is super important. Unfortunately, I didn’t even finish the first book that I was trying to read. Like working out, these things fall to the bottom of the priority list, under school, friends, and work.
- Design a personal website: Nope, but I’m not at all disappointed about this one! I’ve very happy with the progress I’ve made on my travel website, and will eventually get to this, but it’s not a priority right now.
So a measly 1 out of 4 goals accomplished. I got my highest GPA ever this semester and am really happy about that (still chasing the elusive 4.0), but at the cost of real personal development by giving up working out and reading. I’ve always been a staunch believer in separating school and learning (the latter being much more important), and I need to put the priority back where it belongs. Next semester’s school will be much easier, and I truly believe I’ll be able to both maintain strong grades and emphasize my personal development. All in all, I’m really happy with what I accomplished this semester but wish I had stayed more true to my goals.
Goal Setting
I’ve set both goals for the year as a whole, as well as those for this semester. I’ve also updated my 5 and 10-year goals, but there’s no need to go into them here. I’ll go over the year goals, and break them down to the semester-level when applicable.
- Graduate with Highest Honors (GPA 3.55+) — this means getting over a 3.55 GPA this semester, but because I’m only taking 2 classes, I want to get A’s in both!
- Read 6 books off Reading List — I’m coming straight back to this. 6 books in the year means 2 books this semester!
- Work out 3 times/week for at least half the year (26 weeks total) — the weird 26 weeks part of this is to account for the weirdness of my schedule. If I said “Work out three times per week”, there would always be legitimate reasons why I couldn’t (traveling, finding a new summer gym, etc). This alteration gives me an achievable and measurable goal. This semester is 16 weeks so I hope to workout 3+ days for at least 8 of them.
- Target role I like within APT this summer — with accepting my internship offer, I’m very confident this is where I’ll end up full-time, which means I really need to figure out where I fit in best this summer.
- Finish two programming projects — I want to continue to work on my projects to learn more about programming. The first project will be the travel website, and the second is up for grabs. We’ll see!
- Closely monitor expenses —I want to use either Excel or Mint/Personal Capital to have a really good understanding of my finances this semester to prepare myself for life after college.
Word of the Year & Learning Dedication
My Word of the Year this year is consistent. I find it’s incredibly easy to set goals at the beginning of the year and semester, especially ones that require consistency (*cough* reading/working out *cough*), but harder to follow through when life gets busy. I think that being able to be consistent, and not just streaky as I often am, is incredibly important. Looking further into the future, consistency is huge when developing meaningful routines and keeping up with friends and family .
As for my learning dedication, while the dedication for the first half of last year was travel and the second half was programming, I feel I still have so much to learn about both of these! I’ve decided to continue with my same learning dedication of programming, mostly due to my current excitement about the website and how much I’ve been learning through that. Additionally, with the nature of the website being about travel, it’s allowed me to learn a lot about that passion of mine along the way.
Retrospective
And last but not least, let’s talk about all this together with a little bit more feelings injected into it, rather than just bullet point lists of goals, experiences, and accomplishments.
Adjusting back to school was a bit of a pain, especially after the overwhelming excitement of last Spring and the freedom of Summer. That said, the work wasn’t too intense, and I finally got the hang of how to take advantage of things like office hours and group studying, which was a massive contributor to my academic success. Starting the semester off, I feared a burn-out (especially with a couple full-time offers looming over me), but due to my goal of getting that Highest Honor distinction, I still had a reason to try. Plus, it would be difficult for me to not give it my all despite the offers, just because of my personality. At this point, I’m pretty ready to be done with school, or at least the classes part of it — and that’s a lot coming from someone who (historically) loves school!
Friendships were strong and growing this semester. Especially compared to last Fall (the last time I was at Tech, when I was incredibly busy), I’ve been able to dedicate some solid time to enjoying my friends. I’ve gotten closer to a few guys within the fraternity who I’ve wanted to, particularly Chris and Kevin come to mind, and look forward to strengthening these friendships. My friendship with Zach dropped off a little due to him being very busy with both a new girlfriend and an awesome new job, but it’s more a result of circumstance rather than any changes between us. I’ve done a decent job at staying connected with my friends who are 2, 3, and 4 years older than me, as well as High School friends, but can always do better.
It was also a great semester in terms of strengthening family relationships. Thanksgiving was a fantastic time with the extended Webber family. I was able to see the entire family (except for one cousin), and it was the first time I was on the same level as most of my cousins, so to speak. Because they’re in their high-20’s to 40’s, I’ve always been a kid to them, and to finally be around them as — dare I say it — an adult has been great. I loved connecting with them, seeing our similarities, and intensely catching up after years of so little contact. Not only that, but I’m getting the same feeling with my own family. I find myself acting on a closer level to them now. I’m both receiving and giving advice and learning more about my family’s long and short-term histories (which, especially on the Lynch side, I’ve grown more and more invested in). I’ve never been more proud of my family, who we are, and where we come from.
As always, it was another strong semester for my relationship with Mackenzie. I was able to visit her a couple times and she came down to Atlanta a couple times as well, with highlights of her Homecoming and my semiformal. Winter break, of course, was fantastic as well, and got me feeling the closest to her family (both nuclear and extended) I’ve ever been. We’ve been together for almost 4 years now, and are deep into the “smooth-sailing” phase. I know we’re both excited to see what this next year brings. Travel has remained in the forefront of both of our minds, and that post-graduation trip through South and Southeast Asia is becoming a reality — we both can’t wait!
And there you have it! Another awesome semester, filled with academic success, personal growth, and relationship building, has come to an end. Mackenzie is starting her final semester, and I have a measly two more until this unpredictable and fantastic chapter of our lives comes to an end.
Thank you for reading!
Jacob
