#5 - Aaron Gillespie, owner of a B.S. in Electrical Engineering

Motto: Why yes, I can Engineer that for you...

I walked across the floor of Allen Fieldhouse. I walked down the hill. I walked out of The University of Kansas with a Bachelor's of Science in Electrical Engineering; thus ending my streak of 18 straight years in a formal education institution. If I had just listened to my gifted teacher in high school I would have been done in 17 years. Film was a mistake... but I'm glad I made it. Things would have been different if I hadn't, and I like the way things turned out.

 This is not to say I wouldn't change some things if I could go back. I could have taught myself how to study. How to do homework. How to work with my peers. How to have a fun life.

 Brief overview of college (the way it was):

  • I studied film for a year and a half
  • I switched to (after many changes in a two week span) Electrical Engineer
  • I met many of what I now consider to be my best friends
  • I lived to two of the best friends I've ever had
  • I met a special lady
  • I RA'd for over 120 people, liked many of them! Will miss a lot of them dearly
  • I went to the Orange Bowl and watched KU win over Virginia Tech in a nail-biter
  • I watched 2 National Championship games in Allen Fieldhouse, one of which we won
  • I quit blogging
  • I started blogging again (hopefully for good this time)
  • I got my first Android phone (for those of you who know me, you know how big this is)
  • I learned calculus, embraced the inner nerd
  • I watched Hot Rod, The Boondock Saints 2, and all the Avengers movies in theaters
  • I worked for and with some great people both in the summers and during the year
  • I grew about 2 inches
  • I gained about 50 pounds
There really is no way to list everything that should be listed. I'm going to leave it there. This post has been dogging me. I know it's a big post. The first post after the close of me undergraduate career. What's next?


Top 5: Things I learned in college
5. Computer coding
4. Circuit design
3. Calculus
2. How the engineering design process works
1. How to twirl my pen around my thumb.

Quote:
"Schooooool's out for summer! Schoooooool's out forever!"
     - Alice Cooper -

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

#258 - Feature: Notetaking Platform Anxiety

Image
Motto: Writing for Me, by Me Melissa is going back to grad school, she's taking her Mac Air & iPad with her & utilizing Microsoft OneNote. While she was setting up her notetaking environment, I started thinking about how I would architect my "idealized system for handling graduate school". Fair warning, this is a bit of an epic. A system for succeeding in higher education is defined in several broad categories: What would I physically bring with me to class? How would I take notes that are relevant immediately and in the future? How do I manage time & tasks? Answering these questions is the purpose of this Column. I'm going to do so both "in general" and given my specific (more interesting to me, but less interesting in general) case. 1. What would I physically bring with me to class? Obviously I would bring with me a bag. I'd probably just keep my current messenger bag for simplicity sake. Anything could work. In all...
Read more

#42 - Life, The Universe, and Everything

Image
Motto: Don't Panic. BSOD My current computer is crashing on a multiple-times-per-day basis now. It's a little over 4 years old and has been needing to be put to rest for a while. Given that I know technology and what-not, I've decided I am going to build my next computer myself. Seems obvious now, I don't know why I didn't think of it before. It's going to be built specifically to suit my needs. This essentially means I'm going to build a computer specifically for video editing. There will be more on this at a later date... I have a couple of Nexus devices I want to get before the computer time ever comes. Having a job and money is so much better than college was it's not even funny. Whoever said "college is the best time in your life" must have not went through an engineering program. Don't get me wrong, college as great... but would I rather be doing that than what I'm doing now? No fricken way. Most negative words seem to st...
Read more

#22 - It's my party and I'll cry to get attention.

Image
Motto: Two days ago, I was 23. Then I was 24. I aged one year in a day. Yesterday was my birthday. A few friends of mine helped another friend of mine move from Lawrence to Kansas City. The trip up there was hot and windy and stressful. We lost a pillow out of the back of the truck ( not entirely my fault), but otherwise had no casualties. The rest of this story will be told in bullet-point fashion: We relaxed in the air conditioner. We ate Minsky's pizza. We held the first meeting of my secret society that has been held in probably a year. Nobody knows that but me. We threw marshmallows into each other's mouths. We eventually built a slingshot and started using it instead of throwing them. We walked around a really nice apartment building. We were denied access to the pool or the movie theater room on account of them being previously engaged. We got lost (mildly lost) driving around looking for a convenience store.  We saw what is apparently "the bad part o...
Read more