Life is hard by Jack Lichterman

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     And with flurried action, it begins. The Capstone Project, what I've heard such grand tales of, is not as glorious as it seems. In all the stories, I had never thought of the inner workings of the project - now, I do. Right from the start I struggled with choosing specific topics to follow. When I did, and it seemed all would be well, I could not find a group that wanted to pursue electric generation. The other presidents and I divided the class into general topics of interest thinking that there would be many people in each category - enough to make several teams with. Well, we were wrong. Since almost all the students flocked to one category, safety, the four people in "global warming" had to group up instantly, despite the divisions in our sub interests. This caused great difficulty in our choosing of a singular topic and problem statement, as we all wanted to do different things. In the end I managed to convince the group to follow my topic of interest, electric generation. Now, we have moved on and past this decision but have come across more issues. First is that I am finding myself doing the majority of the work as well as shepherding the group to focusing and doing tasks. Well, this is normal for me - carrying the group. A second problem is about the topic we are pursuing. It is certainly a big problem and there are plenty of professionals working on it. Our teacher suggested that we switch topics for this reason and that our actual problem statement was not specific enough. We are considering our paths of action but we all like the topic we are doing. We will see.

     I expect many issues to come up as we continue. I already mentioned the doing the majority of the work and being designated to leading the group. I am worried about the logistics of the project. I think the five of us are capable and will be able to come up with real solutions, but it will be difficult and complicated. I almost expect us to change topics later on to something simple. 

     Aside from engineering I have a few things going on. I am registered for the October 3rd ​SAT, which is unlikely to take place, and have been practicing a lot on khan academy. The website says that I've studied 80 hours. Last week I took a practice test and got a 1530, which isn't terrible. If I get to take it I think I can do a little better. I am also studying to take the Physics SAT 2. I decided to take it in summer and, in order to do so, have to learn a lot of new material. I'm rushing to finish the content so I can get to some practice problems. I also have college applications. The UC app is due November 30th. I have three of the four essay responses written and basically all of the application stuff done. The common application though, I have done less of. I have a decent personal statement that requires a lot more editing to be perfect. I haven't edited a lot of the application and have all of the supplemental questions left to do. I hope I can finish the UC app far before November 30th so that I will have time enough to do my common app well. I wish someone had told me to do more of this earlier. I feel kind of swamped. While I like having stuff to do, this stuff is important and needs to be perfect.

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