Blog
Weekly Blog 26: April 2
Due to schedule conflicts over the weekend around Easter, I was unable to meet with my mentor again this past week. However I continued to work on my product, including converting the Celsius measurements from my sensor into Fahrenheit and creating another program that takes data from the Apache2 webpage, which would be used by the monitor-connected Raspberry Pi in my setup to get the data from the temperature sensor. In regard to my work on converting the numbers from Fahrenheit, I must say, I underestimated the difficulty of the step. Since the number is originally never officially converted to an integer, I had to work with converting the 2-bit number into an integer that I could then use the conversion formula on.
Outside of my work in ISM, I am now happy to say I have heard back from all of the colleges I have applied to. My top choices (right now) are Texas A&M University, where I have a five-year full ride for both an engineering degree and a Masters of Science in Business degree, and Dartmouth College. I am currently trying to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each college, especially in regard to their engineering programs, and plan to discuss the options with my Mentor this week to help determine the best option for me.
Weekly Blog 25: March 26
As the end of march nears, and thus, the end of the long-lasting college application process, things are starting to become more and more hectic everyday. Due to a college visit and interview at Texas A&M University during the latter half of last week, I was unable to work on my Final Product for a majority of that time. However, what I lacked in time working on my product, I made up for by shopping for the addition parts my product needs.
At this point in time, I already have a Raspberry Pi Model 3B, which will be used as the computer that powers the indoors screen, a DS18B20 temperature sensor, a waterproof capsule that transmits information using a one-wire bus system, a breadboard, and more wires than I could ever need at this point in time. On the other end, I am still in need of a Raspberry Pi Zero, which will be used to transmit data recorded from the temperature sensor while outside, and am SPI screen, which will allow me to display my data recorded when connected to my already owned Raspberry Pi. All in all, these additions should be fairly cheap and cost a grand total of under $20. This will allow my product to be both effective and cost efficient, as long as everything goes correctly.
Weekly Blog 24: March 19
This past week, I had my last high school Spring Break ever– just another milestone for myself as I head to the end of the school year. Because I was out of town this spring break for a family vacation, I was unable to work on my Final Product for the past couple of days. However, to make up for this, I had a productive week beforehand that included another mentor visit with Mr. Merkle.
In that week, the focus of my work was creating a web server using the Raspberry Pi application “Apache 2”. Conveniently, my mentor actually had a procedure of how to use the application when creating a project, so during our mentor visit we worked through that procedure together. As we worked through it, I was sure to not mindlessly type in everything he told me; I asked questions at almost every step and took notes to prove it that would help me understand everything I was doing to create the server so I would know how to do it in the future. After my work, I now have a web page based on the IP address of my Pi that displays whatever data the Pi gives it, making me a whole step closer to completing my project.
Weekly Blog 23: March 5
While I did not have an official mentor visit, I did stop by the Crestron office early in the week to grab some materials for my Final Product that Mr. Merkle was kind enough to provide me with, including a waterproof temperature sensor that my project will be based around, a pull-up resistor to connect to the sensor, and any other wires I needed. With these materials, I’ve been able to start work with the actual materials I plan to use!
Outside of my ISM work, I’ve gotten experience in sharing my final product concept to those with no outside knowledge of ISM or my topic, like in college interviews. By getting practice explaining the purpose of the ISM course and my journey throughout it to those who are unaware of it, I am learning how to best describe the course to others. Explaining my Final Product to people like interviewers has the same effect, for I get practice in conveying my ideas and procedure to others– this has also allowed me to gauge the reaction of those listening to my idea pitch, which so far has been positive. Through all of the interviews I’ve been on that ask me to describe ISM, I have learned more and more about how to most effectively present the class and my work within it, which gives me practice in preparing for Final Presentation night.
Weekly Blog 22: February 26
After multiple weeks of waiting, I’m glad to say I’ve finally caught up in ISM!
Almost a month ago, our Final Product rough draft was supposed to be due, but because of a lack of a mentor and inspiration, I wasn’t ready at that point in time to turn in something I was happy with. However, after some very helpful meetings with Mr. Merkle, I was given some great ideas of projects other people completed for inspiration, and I came up with my own idea. My plan for my Final Product is to create a wireless temperature gauge that would measure the temperature of a pool, report the data to a web server, and send the data to another Raspberry Pi module connected on to a SPI display screen that displays the measured temperature.
In my first official mentor meeting with Mr. Merkle last Friday, he helped walk me through using I2C software devices and interpreting the data from the sensors on it. Off of this information alone, I am able to create so many more items on the Raspberry Pi, opening me up to all kinds of projects in the future. I look forward to everything else I’ll find on the way to creating my product!
Weekly Blog 21: February 19
This week I was unable to meet with Mr, Merkle and do as much work as usual for ISM because our state swimming competition. After training hard all season, we left Frisco on Thursday to drive down to Austin. After prelims Friday and finals on Saturday, our guys team came away 10th overall in the state, and I ended up 10th overall in my individual event, the 100 breaststroke.
While not much physical work was done for ISM, on the long bus rides we had I had plenty of time to spend thinking about my Original Work so I can come up with an idea in the next week. While I’m still unsure as to what my final product will be, I have found that I am very interested in the concept of wireless charging. While I’m not sure whether this would involve utilizing pre-created concepts and systems for a different purpose or attempting to create a new form of wireless charging–which is likely way too overcomplicated– I find the ideas of the concept to be interesting. Over the next few days, I’ll continue to mess with the electronics Mr. Merkle loaned me to try and think of inspiration and will research the practicality creating wireless charging systems.
Weekly Blog 20: February 12
After months of waiting, this week was the week of my first mentor visit! While I was a little nervous beforehand due to the fact that I had never met Mr. Merkle previously, as soon as we first spoke I got very excited for everything to come over the next few months with him. As a firmware engineer, he is in the exact position I have been looking for– one involved in both software and hardware design. Mr. Merkle has given me some additional parts to mess around with on my Raspberry Pi, and I’m excited to utilize those over the next week to further my knowledge in the basics and more complicated aspects of the field.
Outside of my mentor visit, I had another major speech in ISM, this one more focused on my Original Work in addition to the material I covered during my last speech. Although I wasn’t too happy with how my speech turned out– I too often found myself using filler words and getting lost in the transitions between my subject areas– I got fairly positive feedback from the people around me, especially the metaphor I use comparing LEGOs to how I used to live my life and how ISM has changed me.
Weekly Blog 19: February 5
From this last week, all the way up through the weekend of February the 16th, our swimming championship season is in full swing; however, that doesn’t keep me from getting quite a bit of work done in ISM. In fact, this last week marked an important development in my ISM journey: officially finding a mentor.
When I initially asked someone to be my mentor, I asked Mr. Sameh Sabet, the managing director from Crestron Electronics. However, Mr. Sabet informed me that shadowing him would not be as exciting as shadowing other people due to the large amount of time he spends in meetings. Instead, Mr. Sabet set me up with one of his coworkers to shadow and learn from, Mr. Jim Merkle. Mr. Merkle is a firmware engineer at Crestron, a field Mr. Sabet described to me as between computer software and hardware engineering. Right away, Mr. Michael seemed happy to help, and I am so excited for everything I have to learn from him. In the email discussions we’ve had already, he wants to start off by increasing my proficiency in devices like the Raspberry Pi that I used for my original work. By doing this, I have no doubt Mr. Merkle will be not only someone to shadow, but someone to assist me in designing a successful final product and everything else along the way. I look forward to all of my future meetings with him.
Weekly Blog 18: January 29
For the most part, this week has been all about getting myself ready for the next big stage of my ISM journey– the mentorship.
As the first semester has drawn to a close and more and more of the ISM students around myself have gotten mentors, I have been pushed to finally put myself out there and request a mentorship instead of delaying any longer. Over the last few months, I have done just about all the research I can on possible mentors, currently putting me at seven informational interviews with professionals in all kinds of fields– including a few software consultants, multiple employees of the Dallas Cowboys working in the Information Technology branch of the company, and finally the managing director of a computer engineering firm named Crestron Electronics.
After all of the interviews I have had, I am currently learning towards the computer engineering career area compared to field like software consulting simply because of the mix of tasks computer engineering involves. With the subject area involving a combination of computer science and software design in order to create computers, that field allows me to both code and use the circuits knowledge i had learned and enjoyed in the physics classes i’ve taken. By picking a more all-encompassing field, I believe I will have more flexibility to choose a specialty later on in my career.
Weekly Blog 17: January 22
This week was the first major presentation of the year in ISM- the Research Showcase!
To be completely honest, despite the amount of work going into it, I was never actually nervous for the event. It actually was more exciting than nerve-wracking, for it finally gave me an audience outside of my ISM class to share what I’ve worked on for the last few months.
Despite a few car issues that caused me to set up after most of the others at my school, once I was settled the event itself was, just like last year, organized and set up very nicely. Putting on a presentation in the Star on the football field was actually a really neat experience. In addition to the facility itself being cool, it was interesting being able to see the ISM presentations for every other student in the district- even though I barely got to see any more than the boards right around my own. While there are some aspects of my Original Work that I wish I had improved on after seeing the other projects (which I elaborated on in my Original Work assessment), I was overall still happy with what I ended up with and how I presented it all.
Weekly Blog 16: January 15
This last week has been crazy because of it being the last full week before the ISM Research Showcase!
While am am a little nervous for the event, more than anything I’m just excited to show off all the work I’ve put into the class for the last few months. All of my time this last week has been split between two items, the poster and my actual Original Work. The poster has been fairly straightforward, with the most difficult part being centering the items on it and trying to make it look visually appealing (artistic design is definitely not one of my strong suits. When it comes of my Original Work, most of my time has been spent perfecting all of the code I have written. The last week has been all about making final changes and improvements to my code and design, and it’s as fun as it’s stressful. For example, due to issues with the electrical current not being read properly, the button had to be changed to one that was more functional and looked less visually appealing. At the same time, I had to rewrite the order of some of my if-logic statements to get the result I desired, sometimes causing me to remove code I had already written.
As packed as this last week has been, I’m looking forward to the showcase, for it will be a successful end to all of my exhaustion in recent times.
Weekly Blog 15: January 8
Over the last three weeks, I’ve finally been able to take all of the planning I’ve been doing and finally start my set up my Raspberry Pi computer and work on my Original Work project.
Initially, my work was delayed due to not receiving the materials I needed until after Christmas (my parents wanted to give them to me as a gift), but in the time since then, I’ve been hard at work utilizing them. I have since hooked up my Raspberry Pi to an actual monitor and connected all the necessary input sources, like a mouse and keyboard. Overall, setting up the computer was fairly simple, while learning how to use the Breadboard took some time.
A breadboard is simply a way of creating temporary circuits without having to solder parts together. When connected to a power source, a breadboard can be used to light up LEDs or perform other functions. What makes a Raspberry Pi interesting is the GPIO ports it has– a set of pins that can provide power to outside objects like a breadboard. Because of this, the first project that I’ve worked on was to connect the Pi to the breadboard and connect an LED to the breadboard along with a resistor (to limit the current). From there, I had to write code in the Raspberry Pi’s terminal to turn the light on and off in a flash of a specified duration.
Even with as long as it took, this project was a great way to learn how to utilize certain ports on the Raspberry Pi, giving me a head start when using the device for other projects.
Weekly Blog 14: December 11
Since my last two informational interviews the week before, this past week has been mostly devoted to working on my original work project for the Research Showcase event.
After my Raspberry Pi, power source, and Micro-SD card came in the mail, I formatted the SD card per the requirements on the Pi’s website and hooked it up to my TV with an HDMI cable I found. With this, I was able to finally start messing with the software for the Pi. The initial operating system I downloaded is Rasperian, a custom language made specifically for the Pi. While it does have a graphical interface, many user commands are also entered through the “terminal” window– a text box in which the user doesn’t click images but types certain characters. Because of this terminal window, I had to do quite a bit of research concerning how to use it in order to get certain aspects of the computer working, like Bluetooth. To connect a simple Bluetooth mouse, I had to scan for all Bluetooth devices in the area and find the code that corresponds with my device to type it in. As I continue to work with the Pi, I expect usually simple tasks to also be more difficult than they would be on a regular computer.
Weekly Blog 13: December 4
Although I was unable to work on any projects for ISM over Thanksgiving break due to being out of town, I took advantage of all the time I had this past week, pushing me to complete two more informational interviews to bring my total number to seven interviews. On Monday, I had another interview within the Dallas Cowboys, this time with David Brigner, the Director of Business Systems, as well as a software engineer. This interview was largely helpful for providing even more advice for someone wishing to pursue software design and continued to not touch on hardware engineering, the other half of the topic I am studying. However, this changed on Friday when I had my interview with Sameh Sabet, a manager at Crestron Electronics in Plano. Crestron focuses on both hardware and software engineering, so the company seems to be the perfect bridge between both of my interests to study for this year.
Even after all of the interviews I’ve had, I’m still not 100% sure who I would like to be my mentor, but every professional I meet with gives me an even better idea of what kind of person and career area I want to learn from. I should be able to make that decision in the next month or so, and by that time I’ll be even further along in my ISM journey.
Weekly Blog 12: November 20
With this being the last week before Thanksgiving break, my focus wasn’t on interviews, but on my research speech presentation and the start of my Original Work. As far as the presentation, much of the preparation just involved rereading over my assessments and making a quick bullet-pointed slideshow that covers the main points of each assessment for a visual representation of what I was saying. Because I already knew everything I wanted to elaborate on, the speech itself was actually fairly straightforward and not difficult, and I enjoyed sharing what I had learned to everyone else in my class.
For my Original Work, I just started ordering the materials I plan to use and asking my extended family for old pieces of computer hardware I could utilize. Thankfully, the most important part, the Raspberry Pi, has already arrived! While I haven’t gotten to explore with it yet, the device is smaller than I expected, which is amazing because it shows how the designers were able to pack so much capability into such a small space. When I return back from my trip later this week, I’ll start plugging the Pi into the parts I’ve accumulated to get it running as a functional computer and see what I can do with it. It may have a steep learning curve, but I’m excited for the challenge that lies ahead.
Weekly Blog 11: November 13
After a few weeks off, this week I got back into having informational interviews by having my fifth and final required interview with Tai Phan at Saxony Consultants by the Galleria. Our interview was different from the others in that we first met up at a restaurant for lunch and talked for an hour and a half. After having a full meal, we meet up at his office and he showed me around while introducing me to coworkers of his. During the entire experience, Mr. Phan gave me great insight into reasons why software consulting is a great industry to get into, especially saying that entering that career after college helps people find where they want to focus on working with software for the rest of their lives. However, Mr. Phan and one of his coworkers also recommended another career area for me to look into due to my enjoyment of mathematics: data science.
From the quick research I've done, data science seems like something I would enjoy, since it applies coding and algorithm creation through mathematics to interpret numerical data. Because of this, I'm hoping to complete at least one interview with a data scientist in the coming weeks to see if it's a career I might want to pursue in the future.
Weekly Blog 10: November 6
As I predicted earlier, this last week has been all about getting active during ISM again. During the weeks prior, college applications had taken priority over everything else, and as a result, my progress in ISM had drastically slowed, for I set up no informational interviews during that time period. However, now that can finally change. I started off my week by contacting more professionals through email and LinkedIn, and I managed to schedule an interview with another software engineer who works out of the Addison area. In addition to that professional, my connections with people working at the Dallas Cowboys has increased immensely all thanks to their Chief Information Officer, who I completed my third informational interview with. With his help, I’ve been able to start planning interviews with the Cowboy’s Business IT System lead and have even been offered a Cowboys internship for when I turn eighteen.
Finally, outside of informational interviews, I’ve started to plan for my Original Work product. While my plan is definitely subject to change over the next few weeks, for now I’d like to combine my experience in drumline and what I know in engineering and computer science in order to create a product that detects what someone plays on a drum and outputs it through sheet music. I’m not entirely sure if this is even possible with the limited funds I have, but there’s nothing wrong with giving it a shot!
Weekly Blog 9: October 30
Unfortunately, the UNT class trip that was scheduled for last week has been cancelled, so I didn’t have any major events/interviews in the realm of ISM. However, this last week has marked the end of my competitive marching band career, for we competed in our last UIL Area Competition on Saturday.
Another heavy focus from last week has been College Applications. I was just recently accepted to Texas A&M’s College of Engineering, but I still have three more applications to work on before the November 1st early deadline. Thankfully, this means that the project that has distracted me from completing more interviews over the last few weeks–applications–will finally be done for a period of time. Because of this, at the end of this week I plan to revamp my informational interview requests to start getting interviews with electrical and computer engineers as well as some data scientists for next week. I’ve felt like I have come to a standstill for the last few weeks, and this will allow me to really get back into the flow of ISM and get as much as I can out of the class. While it may seem far away, the research showcase is quickly approaching and I need to start preparing for it!
Weekly Blog 8: October 23
Over the past few days, I’ve spent my time preparing for the UNT class trip that will take place this upcoming Wednesday. In preparation, I’ve dedicated a large majority of my time to find classes based around my subject area that will give me a chance to get an up close look at how that topic area is taught in higher education. For the most part, I tried to find classes in both software and hardware engineering by searching through the class requirements for for both computer science and electrical engineering majors. This helped me find the classes Digital Logic, taught by Professor Khandaker, Signals and Systems, taught by Professor Yang, and Computer Foundations I, an upper level computer science class taught by Professor Sweany. Through the UNT visit, I hope to get a feel for what my field of study is like on a college campus and get an idea of what the different class schedule compared to high school is like. While I know I probably won’t understand every piece of information in every class I take, I’ve done what I can to prepare– including making my latest research assessment related to a class I plan to sit in on– to make this “field trip” as beneficial as possible for myself.
Weekly Blog 7: October 16
It’s been a really busy week on my end, so unfortunately I’ve been unable to work on projects for ISM outside of class. Right now happens to be the climax of our marching band season with our last contest less than two weeks out, so just about all the leftover time I have is put towards additional rehearsals with my section to perfect minor details in our show. In addition to band, it’s also an incredibly busy time for college applications. Over the last week, I’ve submitted two applications, for Texas A&M and Georgia Tech, and I have four more due November 1st (Stanford, Purdue, UT, and University of Michigan). For all of these schools, I am applying as an engineering or computer science major.
For the time that I have been able to spend on ISM, I’ve been planning upcoming interviews. I’ve recently connected with more professionals involved in Electrical Engineering to get a look at the hardware side of Computer Engineering, and I hope to set up interviews with some of them for next week. After completing some of those interviews, I’ll hopefully be able to know what I want to study and will submit a detailed topic proposal discussing why I chose that topic area.
Weekly Blog 6: October 9
This past week has been another full of schoolwork, college applications, and ISM events. In the last seven days, I have had three informational interviews and the business symposium, all of which have allowed me to speak with professionals involved in my topic areas and consider my options. On Tuesday, I met with Mr. Sen at Hitachi Consulting and was given a closer look at how the software consulting industry works, which is helpful because many companies in the software engineering realm are all similar in the aspects of organization and overall job duties. On Friday, I got to meet with both Mr. Winborn, the Chief Information Officer of the Dallas Cowboys, and Mr. McNiel, a network engineer at the Dallas Cowboys. Both of those interviews has confirmed my desire to focus on the technical side of engineering for ISM instead of the management side, for I think having a strong base in the technical side will allow me to move up in a company later on. My interview with Mr. McNiel was also interesting because he is the first person I’ve interviewed who says that his job can involve some math when subnetting new networks. Since I enjoy math so much, that was one promising aspect of being a network engineer. In addition to all of my informational interviews, the business symposium also took place last week. At the symposium, my biggest takeaways came from the interviews. Vijay Devaoakande encouraged me to stay broad and not box myself into one area of engineering now, and Elizabeth Hamilton encouraged me to not be like so many others and have a “cookie-cutter” life. Instead, Ms. Hamilton encouraged me to maintain my own personal life and keep the relationships going with the people around me. After my interviews, I now plan to interview electrical and computer engineers responsible for creating the products that network engineers work with in order to gain information on the other side of my topic area, computer engineering.
Weekly Blog 5: October 2
In addition to being the last week of or first six-weeks marking period, this past week included my first informational interview for ISM! At 4:00 PM last Friday, I had an interview with Dillon Culpepper, a software developer at a company called GlobeRanger down in Richardson. While Dillon is a professional directly involved in my area of study, he is also a former ISM student who studied Game Development when taking Coach Goff’s class. Because of this, my interview with him was a great way to start of the process of informational interviews. He knew exactly what it was like to be in my shoes, and for that reason he was able to answer all of my questions and give me feedback on my resume in the most helpful way possible. After meeting with a software developer, I now plan to schedule an interview with someone working more on the hardware side of this career area in the coming weeks to compare both sides ot the topic I am studying. Going from this interview with Mr. Culpepper to the three events I have this week (two informational interviews and the Business Symposium), I’ve got a better idea of how to make the interviews as effective as possible in the short amount of time I have.
Weekly Blog 4: September 25
It’s finally time! This week will be the week of my first two informational interviews, with Anindo Sen at Hitachi Consulting on Thursday and Dillon Culpepper at GlobeRanger on Friday afternoon. Because of this, in addition to scheduling more interviews, much of my time for ISM has been preparing for these interviews, whether it be finding the location on Google Map’s street view, researching the company’s products or services, or adding to my initial list of interview questions to fit them closer to the professionals I am interviewing. By doing these interviews, more than anything I hope I can get an accurate representation of what the daily life of a software or computer engineer is like. While I’m sure it doesn’t match the stereotypical idea that software engineers sit in a dark basement illuminated only by the dim glow of a computer screen, I’m curious how collaborative the careers are and what most of the common job tasks involve. Although I am nervous to start this interviewing process, I know the sooner I get started, the more I’ll be able to get out of it. The more people that I’m able to interview, the more informed I’ll be about this career area, giving me the most information to use later in my life.
Weekly Blog 3: September 18
It’s been another busy week in ISM! Thankfully, I’m finally starting to get into the flow of the class and have a better idea of what steps I need to head in the direction I want, which has helped me be more productive every class and outside of school than before. In the last week, while I have continued to find new people on Linkedin, I’ve started focusing more on directly contacting people who have connected with me on the website to start setting up informational interviews. In a few cases so far, I have already gotten some follow up emails from professionals that I hope to meet with to discuss their career with them. However, looking ahead at the informational interview requirements, I am starting to realize that many of the companies I’m hoping to interview with aren’t very close. While many of the people I initially contacted can be found just in the Plano area, some of the others are closer to Fort Worth or Richardson, causing me to have to rethink my process of searching for interviewers. Although distance would definitely not keep me from meeting with a professional, I figure that the closer the professional’s offices is to mine, the more time I can spend with him or her learning. Despite the long travel time to some offices, I greatly look forward to getting to meet with some of these professionals in person over the next few weeks.
Weekly Blog 2: September 11
This last week has been all about gathering contact information for people I can potentially interview in the next month or so. Initially, I attempted to connect with people just through Linkedin, and it went very well. I was quickly able to connect with data scientists and senior software engineers at Toyota and multiple technology executives at McAfee, but after reaching a little over half of my required number of contacts, my use of Linkedin hit a brick wall. After dozens of searches looking for people in the correct career area, I quickly reached the free trial search limit for ISM, forcing me to find connections through other manners. Because of this, I then turned to family members who had backgrounds as electronics salesmen and reached out to family friends involved in the industry asking if they had any colleagues in the DFW area they would recommend speaking to. Besides helping me expand my network, this assignment got me to realize how few computer engineering jobs are labeled “computer engineer” like many other branches of the engineering. Instead, many professionals that I’ve seen are generally labeled as “systems engineers” within their companies. Before I realized this, it was very hard for me to find anyone on the hardware side of computer engineering, and as a result, I had a list full of mostly software engineering contacts. Using that information to go forward, I was able to balance out my list and find a roughly equal number of people in both topic areas. Soon I’ll get to start contacting more of them and scheduling interviews!
Weekly Blog 1: September 4
I’m only two weeks into my Senior year, and I’m already excited for everything in my last year of high school. I already enjoy every one of my classes, but by far the one I’m most looking forward to is ISM. I can tell the class will be a ton of work, but I have no doubt I can manage it as long as I think ahead and stay on top of everything. So far in the class, I’ve already picked my quote, created my mission statement, and finished the beginning stages of my digital portfolio. In addition, I’ve already started looking ahead to other assignments like the first research assessment and the contact list of 25 people working in my field. For my research assessment, I plan to focus on the career outlook for computer engineers, and discuss how that compares to other similar engineering fields. For a while, I envisioned myself focusing more on the hardware side of computer engineering, but now I may turn more toward the software side of the topic area. In the preliminary research I’ve done, software engineering has a much higher rate of growth compared to computer hardware engineering, so depending on the additional research I complete, my topic area may change slightly to reflect that. However, topic choice aside, I’m very excited for the opportunities this class will bring over the next year. ISM will give me the chance to be more creative than I’ve ever been in a class before, and it will push me even further in pursuing my interests. It’s going to be a great year!