Weeee, so semester’s finally in full swing. I have a super packed calendar already and tests start cropping up next week, and every week after that so YAY! Oh, and assignments and labs GALORE. Isn’t that exciting?

Of course, nothing’s more exciting than taking a “break” writing for you lovely people. Though, I think only my mom reads my posts at this point. So, hi mom! Welcome to another edition of Specialisation Corner, as I’m sure you’ve all been looking forward to.

I’ve been doing a lot over the past three weeks. Lots of getting my head around material (see what I did there?) and other work-related things. Hey, you know I love graphs right? Here’s a graph of the amount of time I’ve spent on each of the following courses I’m taking this semester (the x-axis is completely arbitrary please don’t hate me):

There’s a reason behind this.

CHEMMAT 121 for me is pretty much the course with the most unfamiliar content. Other courses, like ENGGEN 121 (Physics stuff), ELECTENG 101 (Electrical stuff), and even ENGGEN 131 (Programming stuff) all have content that we’ve “learned” before and they introduce some new concepts but really it’s a lot of the same thing you probably know already from high school. And then CHEMMAT 121 is like hey let’s learn how blacksmiths make swords (kinda maybe sorta).

Taking all this into account, how much time am I actually spending in class? An average of 12 hours. Per week. (Oh, the GenEd is an online course). Does that sound low to you? It sure did to me at first, had to double check I was enrolling in the right courses. Well it’s true, 12 hours is all of the class time I have scheduled which means the rest of the time can be spent… well, you need to spend it making sure you know the material… but there’s plenty of time to get a part-time job if that’s what you’re after.

So would I consider taking Chemical Engineering? Well, you’re asking the wrong person here but have to admit, I definitely would. It’s not all chemistry or Potions class, I mean, blacksmiths are pretty cool people. So are material engineers. And there’s a lot to learn about atomic packing density and the amount of stress in first year students steel that are really important to learn, y’know?

I think it’s great that Auckland Uni offers a taster of each field in before we pick a specialisation, since that’s not something I would’ve considered at the beginning of the year. Most of the lecturers are awesome and really bring their subject to life. Peter Bier for the WIN!

Alas, no interview this week! I didn’t have time to prepare one. Of course Fresher Flu is a thing but I didn’t think I’d get it twice. Bleh. Had to wake up for an 8am Lab today, so at least I can show you something interesting. We snapped a steel rod in half, which was pretty freaking cool. Here’s a video of it for your enjoyment:

Yes that did make me jump. No I didn’t take a vertical video. Roast me in comments. Also:

It’s pretty concerning that they have to be this specific?!