IN YEAR REVIEW (Fall 2019- Summer 2020)
This year was my second year as a mechanical engineering student in the USA and at the University of Cincinnati. During this academic year, I made a lot of decisions that I believe will affect the rest of my college life in a good way.
First, I decided to apply for a fashion design studies minor because I love fashion and I want to use my engineering knowledge and fashion design knowledge to create something cool for my senior project in the future. I just started taking my first class in my minor this spring, it was “fashion in the public eye” class by Laurie Wilson and it changed the way I see fashion industry. At first, I thought that fashion was about just clothing but actually, fashion is everything in the world. It’s about technology, sustainability, lifestyle, etc. It’s actually a lot more interesting than I expected and I’m so excited to take more classes in my minor in the next semester.
Second, I decided to be part of the Greek community, I got initiated in Phi Sigma Rho (aka Engineering Sorority). I made a lot of new friends and my sisters are so nice, smart, and supportive of each other. I love them so much. As everyone knows to be a woman in engineering major can be rough. So it’s very nice to have someone who understands whom we feel and survive this together. During the spring semester, I got a chance to hold a VP of diversity and development in Junior Panhellenic Council but unfortunately, the semester got cut short.
Lastly, I decided to join the university honor program that made my spring semester became very challenging for me. I had to take 19 credit hours and also had a research part-time job in the Micromanufacturing lab. However, I survived it and got an excellent GPA at the end of the semester.
Become a part of University honor program was very a big change for me, I got to learn to understand more about becoming a global citizen and how important it is to be a global citizen. I have become more active about a social movement, I care about other people, I want to make this world a better place for everyone and it brought back my traveler spirit, I have a plan that I will do study aboard or coop aboard after the pandemic over, I want to see the world more.
Lastly, I have to mention how does pandemic affects my life as an international in the USA. Corona is a very scary virus and a lot of people passed away because of it. After UC announced to change from face to face class to online class. In my opinion, it was very difficult to take an engineering class online and I’m not a perfect fit for an online class because I’m a hand on a person. But I tried my best to survive the semester. The school was not the only stress that I had to deal with. At first, I lost my coop because my employer can’t provide me a remote coop and I had to be in the USA over the summer because they closed the airports in Thailand. Moreover, I had to move out of my apartment because someone who lived there got tested positive. I didn’t have any income and I still have to pay rent. I tried to find solutions out from these problems, a lot of the time, I got “NO” back from the answer, but it never stopped me. The good thing in the dark time is I still have a lot of supportive people in my life, I have a good friend who always is there for me. I have a good academic advisor (Prof.Dwyer) and coop advisor (Prof.Hanson) who tried to help me as much as they can and Dean Weidner who always listen to my problem and help me. Thank you so much for your help I really appreciated what you did for me and other students at UC. I’m so excited that UC let students go back to work face to face again and I’m looking forward to doing my coop this summer. I hope everything will be back to normal soon. I miss UC so much and I can’t wait to go back in fall 2020.