h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, I've gotten through two terms at "The World's Best Playground for Science, Math, and Engineering" now.

I'm pretty definately a chemistry major with a minor in physics now.

Photos from second term can be found at http://www.its.caltech.edu/~rowlands/photos/SecondTerm/

Classes I'm taking next term:
Analytic Multivariable Calculus
Analytic Electricity and Magnetism
Chemistry Research (working on developing a metal complex to oxidize and reduce DNA)
the Wessex novels
computer language shop: C
silkscreening
table tennis
intro to geology

More details will be provided upon request. (I.e. I don't know what people might be interested in, but feel free to ask questions.)

You're so lucky to have that diversity in what you can do with your university time (or perhaps its not luck, but the ridiculous amounts you're expected to pay ). Here, I get history, and then some more history, and then a little more history. And then I have to go and write about history, which generally involves spending hours remembering how crap I am at history.

Table tennis sounds like an excellent course choice to me!

To be fair, Caltech's core science requirements are a good bit more diverse than the average American university's. Although our non-science classes are a bit more limited. I'm not sure cost correlates to quality that well, even among American universities--they're all rediculously expensive, even the not very good ones. And Caltech's actually unusually cheap for a private school, although it's one of the better ones.

Table tennis--well, gym is required, and that's one of the few gym classes I actually am athletic enough to survive.

Good picture memories!

I do so enjoy pictures

Like Chaucer, is that your top bunk bed?

Funny the one student curled up on the floor and you can see the heels of the other student jumping in the air it looks like he is holding the painted umbrella off the wall...and about to jump on the other students head - sorry forgot the names.

That's my top bunk, but there's no lower bunk; my desk is underneath it. Most of the rooms I've seen at Caltech have the beds set up that way; I guess it actually saves slightly more floor space than a single bunk.

I hadn't noticed, but you're right, it does look like that.

In the second photo of the two students at the blackboard, that's the Lewis diagram of sulfuric acid, isn't it?

Yeah, that's sulfuric acid. They were explaining how it reacts with a double bond in hydrocarbons.

Technically, one (Anna) is a TA (teaching assistant--a grad student who gets paid to teach recitation sections), the other (DanO) is a senior who was just helping out with the section.

By the way, I added another subdirectory of photos today--of me and my mom (she came to visit for spring break) at Santa Monica Beach. Unfortunately, they didn't all fit on my webspace.

71 is my fave

The others are great too...that's nasty that there is an overflow onto the beach...ick

I agree, the sunset ones are really neat. Unfortunately, disk space limits prevent me from putting them all online--when I tried to untar the directory, it just stopped after number 71 because there wasn't room. Of course there would be if I deleted the tar file--but then I wouldn't have the photos to untar.

Yeah--I guess the storm drains have to go out to the ocean eventually, but having them come out in the middle of a public beach is pretty disgusting.