First Week Impressions

Posted by Braden

My milk went bad on me on Friday. I've never experienced that before; we'd always just run out of milk at home. In a week and a half, I didn't finish a half gallon of milk. Granted, I don't use it for anything besides cereal, and even that I'm pretty conservative on. It was just a weird feeling—or taste, rather—losing that race with the milk. We'll see who wins next time . . .

Before leaving for BYU, I took a mental inventory of all the clothes I was bringing and how long they would last me. Laundry costs roughly $2, give or take a quarter or two. I found it advantageous to make the investment to buy enough of whatever was on the border line supply-wise so that I would only have to do the wash once every two weeks. These first two weeks were the test, and the answer is: it's quite do-able. Wasn't a problem at all. And now I'll save roughly $2 x 15 2-week periods in school minus $10 for the extra clothes I brought to bring me to the limit, for a net gain of $20. :-) Less than 1/5 the cost of the average textbook. :-( But every little bit counts, I suppose.

The weather—three main differences between Utah and Ohio:

1) The mountains! I love the mountains! Lost? The mountains are East—now be lost no more!
2) The lack of humidity. It's really quite dry here. I wake up in the morning and feel like I shouldn't dare smile, because my face might crack. I feel a bit like the tin man sometimes, but my skin is adjusting slowly.
3) The lack of oxygen. It's not a huge deal, but every once in a while I'll be running around or playing volleyball or climbing lots of stairs, and I'll wonder to myself, "why am I so out of shape?" It's because I'm used to having more oxygen readily available! No wonder the Denver Broncos used to have a such a large home field advantage in their Mile High Stadium!

My schedule is finally set at 16.5 credits (for a second there it looked like it was going to be 17.5! But I cut it down one), and the grand total for textbook costs is . . . *drum roll*. . . a very painful $650. OUCH! I was not prepared for that. But on the plus side, I should be able to get about half of that back when it comes time for sellback. And now that I'm here, I can ask the teachers for the classes that I'm going to be taking next semester and what books I'll need, so I can shop online for them next time. The most frustrating part of the experience was my chem book:

1) Brand new, it cost $194
2) It was just barely published, so there was no such thing as a "used price" for it.
3) I could buy the 10th edition instead for $130—the new book is the 11th edition—but because this is the last semester that it's being used, I wouldn't be able to sell it back at the end of the semester.
4) $40 of the price was a 'media pack' that came bundled with it, which I don't need, can't use for my particular class, and can't return. So when I return my book for 60% at buyback time, I will only be able to get 60% of the portion of the $194 for which the book was responsible.

The .5 credit mechanical engineering seminar that I'm taking looks like it's going to be exactly what I wanted! It's pass/fail, so there's little stress involved, and we'll be doing all the things that I was wondering how to do when I got here. We have an assigned staff member in the ME department with whom we have an interview and discuss our plans. The engineering organizations such as ASME, SAE, AIAA, and SME are coming to class and telling us how to get involved and what they do. I can ask all of my questions such as "How valuable is a minor? How do I get somebody else to pay for my doctorate? How valuable is an MBA? Is it alright to go straight to a PhD program after undergrad and skip the master's?" etc. I'm excited for how helpful it will be.