This year brought the most international travel of any year of my life! Furthermore, many internal changes, and growth has also happened for me. As I transitioned from changes in the US to changes in going abroad, I realized that this second-to-last year was very important for me to direct my efforts during my final year of undergrad, and onward into the rest of my life.
Right before August, I took the intensive Japanese class to prep my mind for my time in Japan. I took a couple quick trips to Pittsburgh (to see friends), and Atlanta (for fun) before the semester started! I started the year with the last semester of education before senior year, and it really hit home that my undergraduate education was wrapping up. All of my mechanical engineering classes were starting to come together in a nice way. I learned a lot about signals and systems, mechatronics, and other engineering subsets that brought my prior knowledge in engineering all together. This year, I also joined three new clubs, and lessened my involvement in other clubs. Tae Kwon Do club was a great choice, as I knew a couple of people in it already, and they spoke very highly of it. In middle school, I had done a few years of Kung Fu, so I knew I already had a slight aptitude for martial arts. I have never been the type to be fully motivated in physical exercise, and I knew that a good community was really necessary for self-motivation. In October, I was able to go to a competition at Purdue University to show off my skills as well, and it really helped improve my confidence in my physical abilities. I also joined Cubecats, an organization that works on cube satellites, and sends them into space. I started the work with them in July 2018, and helped them with many projects, including orbital analysis in STK, and creating a step by step process for solar panel construction. The work I've done with them has helped me hone my skillsets, and desires for future work in astronautical engineering. I was also inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa, one of the most prestigious honor societies on campus. It was a difficult selection process, with a long application, and an interview, but I was honored to be one of the less than 1/3 of applicants that were selected to join the organization! I'm looking forward to working with fellow leaders this upcoming year, and building my leadership skills. The organizations that I continued with this past year included Ipals and UC World Friends, both international communities that I feel a really strong connection to. I also continued going to Young Americans for Liberty, as I enjoy the political debates from a libertarian perspective. I continued my involvement with St. Monica St. George in the choir, and made some really good friends in the church as well! For the first time at UC, this past year, I felt like I was definitely a part of the community at SMSG. Through TAP (the Transition and Access program for developmentally disabled students) , I was again a mentoring partner, learning from one of the students and befriending them. Helping these students often gives me a sense of happiness, and that I'm doing something really meaningful, so I will definitely continue my involvement with the program next year. I occasionally went to both astronomy and philosophy club, although less than before. As I am no longer in charge of astronomy club, I'm actively trying to step back, and let the club go on without me, in order to ensure future growth. I also started going to JASS, the Japanese American Student Society, and I will continue to do so this next year, in order to make Japanese friends and further improve my Japanese skills. This next year, I will also be a part of Engineering Diplomats, in the mentorship committee, gaining input from some of my Chong Qing friends in order to help make the organization better. I was also able to work on both my engineering research, and astrophysics research. Although I had been working on the engineering research for a while, the astrophysics research was new to me. It was mainly spectroscopic analysis, and learning about star spectra and learning about the processes and software involved helped me better understand the work of a modern astrophysicist. If you'd like to learn more about this research, click here. In November, I went to the ASME IMECE 2018 conference to present my engineering research. As a reminder, it's fuzzy logic utilized for UAV path planning. Although I didn't place, I learned a lot about how to professionally present my work, and made some professional connections! I was even able to go to some of the nearby attractions with both conference goers and locals! After the semester wrapped up, I was able to take a couple of weeks off, and then headed on the Engineers without Borders trip. After spending so long helping the organization in the Nyambogo, Botswana, and Grant Writing Committees, it was really nice to see how it all came together, and help build clean water systems for several communities in Tanzania. Although I had volunteered for many different organizations, going to another country really gave me a much-needed cultural international perspective within volunteering. I both got to see how international perspective is necessary in many non-profit endeavors, and I got to gain an unforgettable experience as well. If you'd like to learn more about my experience in Tanzania, click here. After the EWB trip, I stayed in Cincinnati, working part time, meeting friends before leaving, and studying both Japanese and for the GRE. For a weekend, I went to Liberty Con with Young Americans for Liberty to Washington DC, and got to see a bit of the city. I then spent three weeks traveling with my co-worker through Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. This experience really taught me a lot about myself, and opened my eyes to a lot of new possibilities in my future travels. I'd love to do something similar, in terms of long term travel, in the future! When my job started on February 25th, I felt refreshed and ready to go back to work. At the time of this writing (June 2019), I am in Tokyo, Japan, completing a 6 month internship with IHI, an aerospace research company. I can't say much about my work, as it's mostly confidential, but I am mainly doing simulations in two different softwares, analyzing the fluid dynamics of a certain airplane part. It's not what I want to do in the future, but I am definitely learning a lot. I am also getting hands-on experience in the Japanese workplace! While I'm in Japan, I've also been very busy, trying to work on a research paper for my engineering research, and study for the GRE! I am working on applications for grad school programs in astronautical engineering, and I will be continuing honing my applications through the middle of November. I've still had some free time to explore Japan, and see wonderful things all around Tokyo. During my vacation week in April/May (Golden Week in Japan), I got to see the Kansai region, which is Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, and Nara. I will also visit Hokkaido in July. I've been able to meet many people during my time here, both Japanese, and other expatriates like myself. I've joined an international church called Lifehouse, met people through the Couchsurfing and Meetup apps, and befriended a couple of my coworkers. I'm also very lucky that Christian, my boyfriend is here in Tokyo as well. However, we live so far away from each other that during the week, we can't meet each other, so it helps us find other ways to occupy our time! It's been a wild adventure, and once I head back to the US, I will have an updated experience to reflect my time in Japan! In my free time, I've been inspired to start a travel blog as well. I had previously created a travel instagram, and I thought that maybe it was a natural extension to start a blog. I love to write, I love to share my travel stories, and I have my travel stories all scattered in various places.... so it's best to bring them all together under one roof! I'm still working on getting more posts up, but what I have so far can be found under starryeyestravel.com , and if you would like to get updated on new posts, a newsletter subscription is an option! All in all, this year has shown me things about myself that I needed to know. It has rarely been easy, that's for sure. It's taken a lot of hard work, and a lot of difficult realizations, but I believe that it's all been essential to my progress as a person. It's all also helped illuminate the truths about myself as an individual and my goals for the future and the present. I'm grateful for this past year and hopeful for the next one! |