We are in the home stretch. I have roughly 1 month to finish all of my Senior Design projects, and about 2 months to get a job before I graduate formally. The end is so near it is hard to contain the bubbly sensation to just skip all the way to Biergarten.
I notice this feeling, but I realize how risky it is to have it. In 6 weeks, I have three projects to complete, a convention to oversee, speeches to perform, interviews to do, and columns to write. I am by no means done.
But mentally, it is getting increasingly difficult to keep on task and ready, especially with spring break so heavily on my mind.
It is my hope that coming back from spring break will be a big wake-up for me (we’ll see how I do these next few weeks.) In the time since my last column, I’ve traveled a lot. I went to Boston in mid-March and San Diego over the break.
When I was in Boston, I got to explore around the beautiful campus of Northeastern University as part of the Chi Epsilon Conclave (if you didn’t know, Chi Epsilon is the National Civil Engineering Honors Society, and I am currently an officer of the Stevens branch.) The campus was gorgeous, and the city was amazing. Yes, the roads were curvy and complicated, but overall they were so well-maintained! Bridges and underground highways made the whole city somewhat of an engineering marvel. I was so impressed and enamored with the whole place.
In Northeastern, we spent most of our days working within the Curry Student Center, a massive 5-story complex with multipurpose, moveable-furniture classrooms, dining services, a bookstore, the SGA headquarters, IT support, like, anything you could think of could be found in this building. The building alone was immaculate, with windowed elevators and glass stairs, and completely ADA compliant (from what I could see).
Do you know what our Student Center is? Jacobus. Freaking Jacobus. Ugly, outdated, completely impossible to navigate in a wheelchair, and smelly. The roof and floors sag in certain locations. I know I’ve had issues getting soap in the two bathrooms in the whole complex. Northeastern had a “Gender Neutral Restroom” for crying out loud.
They do this with a comparable cost of tuition room and board (from what I have heard.)
Stevens disappoints me utterly. I get that we don’t have a lot of room to expand, but Northeastern is in Boston, one of the bigger cities in the U.S., and we are only in Hoboken, next door to the Big Apple.
Then, a week later, I packed my bags and went to San Diego, and I don’t think I’ve come back yet.
Every day was at least 65F and it never rained. Sure, there were some concerns getting water everywhere, but everyone was outside and having fun. I know, it was a tourist location, but even when my girlfriend and I traveled to Scripps Institute of Oceanography, none of the professors were in their offices – they were out surfing!! A few of the people we met and hung out with even told us that they have special agreements with their places of work to show up later in the day, in order to enjoy the beach first – most of them surf.
San Diego was gorgeous and well connected, and most of the areas I ventured around in were well maintained, clean, fresh, and sometimes sandy, but not without reason.
Then, without warning, it ended and I had to come back to New Jersey. It was 39F and overcast when I arrived.
To hell with that.
Now all of my assignments have ticking deadlines sitting in my calendar like ticking time-bombs.
Even as my obligations close in around me, I can’t help but think that there is something missing, like an end-goal or something. I think that once this is all said and done, I need to move out of this region of the world – but maybe it’d be more prudent to wait until after I have made a bit of money.
Ugh, so confusing. Maybe I WILL just go to Biergarten!
