Finally at Mudd

After over a year of quarantine, I can finally go to the school I pay for. Words can't describe how refreshing it feels to see my peers not through a computer screen but in-person, and basically everyone feels that way, too.

Quick updates: I did very well in all my summer classes and with my work at the Naval Research Laboratory. I go into these below.

Before this summer, I thought that a great job for me could be working as an Astrophysicist for the Naval Research Lab. There's great job security, great benefits, and the pay is pretty darn good! Because of this, I thought to myself, "I should get a summer job there to get my foot in the door!"

Although the job was everything I was expecting (physics, cool projects, and great benefits/pay), the bureaucracy involved with it was very disappointing.

Here's a few of the things I was very disappointed with. The sign-on process for NRL took six months because of all the people the sign-on process had to go through, all the people that had to do security clearances, all the background checks, and *wow* there was a lot. Keep in mind, my advisor wanted to hire me and get me working back in January (in fact, I had gotten assignments during that time for my work, so I was basically already working) but I didn't receive a paycheck until June because of the sheer amount of bureaucracy my stuff has to go through.

Another example: It also took three months for them to send me my telework computer because of all the IT it had to go through, and when it got here, it hadn't even been set up correctly! It was completely unusable for my entire work period! Basically, they spent three months sending me a nonfunctional computer a month before my job ended, and then I had to send it back to them.

Trust me, this is only the tip of the iceberg of stories working here, and from job reviews for similar jobs via Glassdoor, this seems to be a common theme for these types of jobs.

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Ok, so I'm finally at Mudd! Here's my classes for this semester (they changed slightly since last time):

P111 - Theoretical Mechanics

P117 - Statistical Mechanics

M131 - Real Analysis

M180 - Partial Differential Equations

E79 - Systems Engineering

Econ53 - Macroeconomics

PE Weightlifting

Total: 18 credits (max I could get, they wouldn't let me go over, and before you say "omg just keep asking it's so easy" let me tell you that I arranged tons of meetings and spoke personally to the deans over zoom to make my case - apparently they thought that "omg the sophs from zoom won't know what it's like on campus, so we don't want them making the mistake of overloading and regretting it" >:( in other words, "bruh"

I suppose it doesn't matter though - I'm still more than on track to graduate with my degrees, and I don't actually need to overload on any semester as long as I pass all my classes. It's just I kinda want to so I can learn more stuff, but that's besides the point. These classes are still very solid (and tough).

So, fall semester! Very busy with classes. I'm focusing on doing well in all my classes, doing well in MARC (Mudd amateur rocketry club), and getting some type of aerospace internship next summer. Wish me luck!