Halfway Reflection

In order to keep up with the requirements for this course, one of the most important behaviors I used was managing my time and scheduling a time to work on this class each week.  Since I have no class on Thursdays, and my assignments in my most time-intensive class are due on Wednesday, Thursday has been a great day for me to work on this class.  My only suggestion is that you do your assignments at least 24 hours in advance since some of them require interviews, which can be difficult to arrange in-time.  The other behavior that has helped me keep up with this class is spending time picking something I cared about for my business idea, which has made the assignments much more enjoyable.

While not in this class, a moment when I felt like giving up was during the first design report for EML2322L, design and manufacturing lab (DML).  In this assignment, I had two weeks to design a robot to move tennis balls from a 3-tiered wooden frame into a bucket that satisfied a given set of design constraints.  I then had to make detailed drawings of the robot, made to-scale using straight edges, engineering paper, and a compass, complete with dimensions and material specifications.  I had to draw the whole robot from the front, top, side, and isometric view, and do the same for all of its subsystems.  I am not artistically inclined, and I had never undertaken such a large project within such a short period of time.  On the night I started my first drawings, 4 days before they were due, I had a panic attack because I didn't think I would be able to pull it off, and I felt like giving up.  I had to call my parents and my big sister to calm myself down, and then I talked to my friends and planned to work with them in the library while I did the drawings.  Over the next 3 days, I easily spent at least 25 hours on the drawings, but I got them all done and felt hugely relieved.  I feel like I definitely developed a tenacious attitude over the past 2 months, and overcoming my first design report contributed most to this.  If I can get through that, you can get through any assignment this class can throw at you because none of them are nearly as bad as what I had to do for DML.

One of the most important tips I can give you for fostering the skills that support tenacity is to find something that drives you to succeed.  For me, it is my love of exotic cars; below I have included a picture of me with a Ferrari F50 and F40 LM from a car show in Naples (the combined value of the two is roughly $9 million).  Since I view success in school as increasing my chances of owning an exotic car, this drives me to succeed in my courses.  Another tip for developing the tenacious mindset is to see yourself as unstoppable, and believe that no assignment, class, or professor is worthy of preventing you from achieving your goals.  The final tip I have for you is to realize that you have all the tools you need to succeed; you are in one of the best country's to live in (the very best in my eyes), you're at one of the best schools in it, and you wouldn't be here if you weren't among the smartest people in the country yourself.  You've got this! :)