My Monday night class, Operating Systems, had its last class this Monday.  We had presentations due, and were also scheduled to take a final.  There were five people in the class, and two groups that had to give presentations.  The presentations went for 45 minutes and 1 hour, so the teacher decided we had done enough work that we didn’t have to take a final!  In Optics & Holography, as well as Classical Field Theory, we have take home exams, so I won’t have any in-class finals.  Research is a class I’m taking for 2 credit hours that won’t have a final either.  This means that the only in-class final I will have to take is for Transforming Conflict & Violence!  Once I get this weekend and its associated projects out of the way, next week is going to be pretty relaxed.

In the optics lab, there are lots of lasers, lenses, and optical devices. One of the things we use these for are to make holograms. It’s a pretty detailed and complicated process, but with (lots of) trial and error, we have been able to make 3-D holograms that are viewable in the sun. For our final project, we are hoping to use a two-step process to make a hologram that has part of the object in front of the viewing plate, and part of the object in back.
It’s projects like these that make me glad I chose Goshen. I get a real sense of community, with friends and professors that I can connect to on a personal basis. I also get incredible resources that I can use to make learning fun. I never thought I would be using lasers to make holograms in college, but it’s been a blast.

April Fools!  The President is not stepping down from his position, but his face did make its way onto a cardboard cut-out in front of the Administration building this morning.  People seem to be having fun with the April Fool’s day pranks this year. In other news, there’s no class tomorrow!  We have Good Friday off, and I’ll be heading home this afternoon to spend the weekend with my family.  Enjoy your Easter weekend!

Almost every aspect of the play was updated, including the language, costumes, set, and music.  For example, the costumes include articles of clothing that weren’t present in 17th century France.  As far as the music goes, my roommate and friend, Patrick Ressler, has written string arrangements to include music that’s popular by today’s standards (Britney Spears’ Womanizer is one of the arrangements).  I’m excited to see what this play has to offer, as well as the hard work that the cast and crew put into this production.

May term is coming up, which is a month where you study one class pretty intensely every day. Class is always over by 12:00,so people have time to hang out outside. Just seeing everybody hanging out outside is getting me excited for May Term.  Goshen’s campus and livelihood is pretty impressive in the summertime.

Coming back was an adventure. Since I live closer to Chicago, the snow is not as bad on that side of the lake. Once we got around Lake Michigan, there was lots of snow. We made it safely, however. It is really nice to reconnect with friends that I haven’t seen in a long time. I always love coming back to school to hear about people’s stories while they were gone and see some of my close friends.

I’m pretty excited about my class schedule this semester. I will be taking Classical Field Theory, Operating Systems, Optics & Holography, Intro to Philosophy, Choir, and helping out with a research project. Now that I am well into my junior year, my classes are starting to lean more towards the technical side of things rather than having mostly general education classes. I like having technical classes because of the challenge that it presents as well as the fact that the classes are more interesting to me.

As I am thinking about my activities to come, I hope you are looking forward to your semester as well. Although high school was never this way, Goshen College is a place where I actually look forward to coming back to school. I hope the college that you choose, whatever it is, brings you just as much joy.

As a part of the classes I have to take for my music minor, I am in a song leading class. This class is interesting because it gives me real experience and training about how to lead hymns in church. Mennonites have a long- standing tradition of hymn sings, so this talent will definitely come in handy.

For our final project in the class, we are going to be leading a hymn sing for students at the college. I will be a little nervous, but I am definitely excited for the opportunity as well. We will be planning all of the aspects of the hymn sing, including location, time, songs to be lead, and technical aspects (sound, lights, etc). It should be a really cool project. We will be in big groups, so the work can be divided between a lot of people.

This is yet another opportunity where I am learning that Goshen is preparing me for real life. The classes I am taking are directly applicable to the kinds of things that I want to do when I am older. This hymn singing class is really helpful because I now have a skill that I can use whenever it is needed. I can also help others learn how to lead hymns if they want help. The kind of education I am getting from Goshen is really important. Plans change, and Goshen is helping prepare me to transition well if the things I end up doing are different from the things I intended to do.

As you may or may not know, Goshen is a Liberal Arts college. But what does this really mean? It means that instead of taking only classes related to your major, you will have to take math, science, literature, wellness, bible, sociology, and music classes as well. It also means that you’ll have to endure a little more headache, because you’re not quite done with math just yet, but you will be better prepared for any task you are assigned in the workplace.

As part of the General Education requirement, you have to take a Humanities class. This particular class is Humanities: Art and Theater, so we study (yep, you guessed it) art and theater. And last week for class, we went on a field trip to Chicago!

We left around 9:00 in the morning, and got to the Art Institute of Chicago around noon. We got to see the new modern wing, and, after a little homework, got to explore the art museum for as long as we wanted! The coolest part about this field trip was that we got to be independent like the college students we are. Once we were done with our assignment, we had free time until 6:00 pm! For me, that meant that when I got my assignment done, I went to check out the modern wing for a little bit. After that, I went to the Apple Store down on Michigan Avenue for a while, and then had dinner with my parents because they were in town.

When we got back at 6:00, we headed out to the Steppenwolf Theatre to see the production Fake. It was a recently written play about the Piltdown man, the supposed link between apes and humans. The play was really interesting, and it was a great production put on by a professional theatre company. We got back late after a talkback session, at around 2:00 in the morning!

Overall, I had a great time in Chicago. Let this be a lesson that general education classes don’t have to be boring, but can be a lot of fun instead!

I am a Physics major. Although I don’t consider myself a nerd, this blog is about what we are doing right now in our electronics class. And it’s pretty nerdy (but fun).

In electronics, we are learning about robots. We are using bread boards to hook up LEDs, motorized wheels, motorized rangefinders, and LCD character displays. This is all hooked up (with a nasty massive schematic) to a microcontroller. This may sound sweet, but that’s not even the coolest part of the project.

The really neat thing is how we use the robots. We are writing computer code in C, and then compiling it and putting that code on the microcontroller. This means that we can program the robot to do any number of things based on the code we write. We have gotten our robot to play follow the leader, avoid objects in the way, bliink the LED, and interact with it using the LCD display.

This is yet another cool part about Goshen College. Even though it’s a small liberal arts school, we have lots of opportunities similar to the big universities. This is an electronics class with 13 students in it, yet we get to work with robots and program computer code that controls them. If this sounds like something interesting to you, come check it out! You can sit in on an electronics class during your campus visit.

Stay tuned for more updates about what a real live college student is doing in his classes!