Stand Clear

I'm taking a break from studying for my strength of materials final that is on Monday. I'm currently trying to utilize the cable television I pay so much for (and I'm watching network TV). What a waste. Why do I even have this? I think I'm on pace to be ready for my test Monday. Basically it's three topics: beam deflection equations using integration, singularity methods, and superposition. That I need to brush up on a little. Then there's column failure, something I feel very comfortable with. Lastly, failure theories, beam columns, and impact loading. I feel like I've learned a lot from this class last year. Dr. Kuder is definitely my favorite professor here. It's amazing how difficult these topics appear and she explains them in such a way that they're not so hard anymore (she's only 28). My strength of materials professor at my old school shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence as Dr. Kuder. It wasn't entirely his fault, but that class was awful. It was in this 300 person lecture room containing a class for about 50. He stood up at the front wearing a microphone and deriving God knows what on a dry erase board that I needed a telescope to read. Back then I didn't know the difference between stress and strain (a really really big deal, to say the least, in structural engineering) and just assumed all my boundary conditions would result in integration constants equaling zero (a huge huge no-no). I feel like if I graduated from Colorado State with a Civil Engineering degree I would be so inadequately prepared for the professional world. Everything about this school has given me so much confidence in myself and my future. I'm really glad to be here.