clubs

Caltech Soccer

From preseason until now, soccer has been a big part of my life here at Caltech. During preseason, we usually practiced twice a day, and when school started with the exception of games we trained from 4-6.But being on the soccer team isn't just about time spent on the field. Before a gamewe mentally prepare and watch what we eat, for the team. I've also made a lot of good friends with the soccer players.
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culture

Carnival!

Now the subject of this post is long since past, but I only recently got the pictures, so you’ll have to forgive my delay…

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clubs

In-N-Out...in London??

Hi again! :D So this past Tuesday, someone told me that In-N-Out was here in London. If you are a Techer or have been to California before, you know how good In-N-Out burgers are. So, my friend Daniel and I went to check it out theplace.

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culture

Rock pools, Boxing, Elections

I was really nervous going into this term because I thought it was the most difficult schedule that I had so far. I’m actually loving it. I am so thrilled to finally be in classes that I’m really interested in. On top of that two of my classes have bi-weekly sets, giving me so much more flexibility in my schedule.

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global

Me - a college student?

Hi readers! Sorry it's been a while; this new college life has taken me a couple weeks to get the hang of. After preseason and a long summer's worth of fun, my brain needed some time to be used to thinking again.
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local

“If I be waspish, best beware my sting.”

Hiya! :D So this is the 2nd week of classes-CHEM3205 (Principles and Methods of Organic Synthesis) here is really interesting and is definitely the most challenging course for me here. The lecturer moves pretty quickly, but I enjoy learning about the mechanisms and figuring out how to synthesize molecules with Pd complexes. HART1401 (Renaissance Art in London) is also quite interesting. I went to the National Gallery for class and really enjoyed the environment of having class in at a museum. It really is a unique experience.

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clubs

A Trip to Shpongolia

Like I said in my last post, I’ve made a point of trying to get out and about more in the greater LA area. Over the summer, I went cliff diving in Angeles National Forest - taking advantage of the awesome natural scenery that’s nearby. On the other hand, there’s something else that’s pretty noteworthy nearby - the gigantic metropolis that is LA. With it comes everything that you might expect with a big city - sports, clubs, and in this case, concerts.

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research

Caltech, again.

I’ve been back at school for almost 2 weeks now. I’ll just give a snapshot of what I’ve been up to:

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clubs

Hometown date

The posts that are going up are actually behind my real life. I was actually in Colorado a couple weeks ago and wrote this then but it hasn’t gone up. After this blog I will be caught up, I promise! The past few days I have been in Colorado, where one of my best friends from Caltech, Kelsey, lives. I really like how everyone comes from all over at college. This was my first time in Colorado and it has been so much fun! Kelsey’s family has an adorable cabin in the mountains on the edge of Pikes Peak National Forest. I loved having so much nature around with hardly any people. Especially after having spent the past couple weeks in very densely populated India, I appreciated the space.

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global

The best of frosh camp

An advantage of going to a small school is that our incoming class is small enough that we had orientation at the Marriott at Ventura beach.We left caltech theMonday morningafter convocation- it took 7 buses to fit all of us and the camp counselors. A trip like this probably would not be feasible at a bigger school due to logistics. Our class is about twenty more than last year’s, and 264 people fitting into one building made us seem like a big feat.

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research

Frosh Camp 2012 - Challenges and Choices

I just got back a couple of days ago from Frosh Camp - Caltech’s annual introduction to freshman orientation. It’s held at a Marriott hotel on San Buenaventura State Beach:

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research

Welcome Class of 2016!

Sunday was an exciting day for everyone on campus because all the frosh have arrived! The soccer team had morning practice and after we came back from the gym I definitely felt a change in atmosphere.So many more people and new faces!It kind of feels like the first day of high school, but way better because it's college, especially since the friends you make are neighbors.The usual formalities ensued; we officially checked in, got free stuff, nonpreseason athletes moved in, etc. Right before convocation, we took our Class of 2016 picture.
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global

UCC Training

Last week, I drove back from San Francisco (actually, a suburb thereof that almost no one will have heard of) to finish off my summer. After spending 7 hours in a car to get here after 1 am, I had to wake up the next morning to go to UCC training for the first of 3 all-day sessions.

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clubs

Everything's gone pear shaped...

Hi again! It’s been a week since I’ve moved in to Ian Baker at UCL.

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research

European Nuclear Physics Conference

Hi all,

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research

Caltech - a place for firsts not only in research

I've talked about how preseason prefrosh have a fair amount of free time on their hands, but not really about what we do. Instead of blogging about listing all the fun events and activities,I'm just gonna focus on the firsts I've experienced since preseason started.
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culture

The Honor Code... It's a real thing.

Hello Loyal Readers! On today’s installment of Scribbles by Chad: The Honor Code.

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local

I think I'll go to Boston... I think I'll start a new life...

So Spring Break is at an end and all of us here at Caltech are gearing up for the spring term. I think this is a good opporunity to review how I spent my first spring break at Caltech (or in my case not totally at Caltech).

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culture

Hey, You, Over There!

Hey Guys (and Gals)! Welcome to my blog! My name is Brad and I’m a freshman here at the wonderful California Institute of Technology (henceforth referred to as ‘Caltech’) hailing from the Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago. Even though we don’t declare our majors until the end of the third term of our frosh year, I intend to double major in Applied and Computational Mathematics and Business Economics and Management (i.e. ACM & BEM). Soooo what do I want to do in this first introductory blog post?…. Introduce my blog. Bet ya weren’t expecting that! I’m a pretty diverse guy; you can find me doing anything from clubbing to playing DotA [DotA 2 i.e. – Yeah I got a Beta Key ^_^] to reading a book [if I have the time while at Tech] to running around campus in my florescent orange running jacket [I’ve been told that it makes me look like a highlighter but that’s cool too] to well… almost anything really. Likewise, my blog is going to be pretty diverse as well, not only based on what I said before but also because I’m international! So I get to do all those fun strangers in a strange land thing like… umm… psets, what are those? Haha.

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research

Cool Happenings Over Campus

Although this is a blog about our adventures on the road, I wanted to let everyone see what we saw today from campus. The Space Shuttle Endeavor flew over Caltech and JPL on its way to its new home at the California Science Center! This is the view from the 9th floor of Millikan Library.

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academics

Brace yourself... midterms... have passed?

Hey there boys and girls. It’s been so long since my last blog! Sorry to have kept you waiting. Just kidding… mostly.

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culture

Room and Board

At Caltech, the dorms are split into eight houses. We are sorted into these houses after Rotation, which starts in October along with classes. During the process and preseason we are placed in temporary housing assignments, meaning we may or may not stay in the same house for the rest of college.
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research

Cambridge

Hi all!

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culture

Marché aux Puces

This weekend I pretty much kept to the same theme of walking through forests and eating, my typical vacation schedule. It’s actually pretty entertaining since my family has two Australian Shepherds that my uncle works with for agility training. They just disappear in the woods for a while, then you see all sorts of rabbits and other woodland creatures darting across the path followed by the dogs. It’s a great way to get the entire forest experience and see the local fauna. Then of course there is my grandmother’s dog, the puff ball. He can’t really keep up with the Aussies but he’s cute.

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clubs

SoCal Safari

Having grown up in Southern California, I came to Caltech with a good knowledge of cool places to visit in the area. This last weekend I went down to theSan Diego Zoo Safari Park(formerly known as the San Diego Wild Animal Park) with my family. It’s a wonderous place I’ve loved going to for as long as I can remember, so I thought it was worth advertising to all you potential Techers that might be visiting the area.

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research

Yes, I have two questions for you...

It might seem like this is a less-than-exciting post from the outside, but for me, presenting at group meeting was really exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. My mentor has decades of experience in the field of tissue engineering and the rest of the grad students and post docs in the room definitely know way more about this topic that I have learned in my 10 weeks here, so it was pretty intimidating to be up there presenting on a topic that most people knew more about than I did.

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culture

A Visit from Dad!

In the last week of my time in Houston, my Dad flew down from Ohio to stay with my grandmother (his mother-in-law) and me for a few days. It was a good visit and my dad was able to help my grandmother with some things she needed fixed around the house. << That makes it sound like I’m not capable of helping my grandmother fix things, but she mostly just waited until he got there to point out the broken drawers and dead light bulbs, etc. That being said, I tried to help her open an empty pepper mill to refill it for probably 20 minutes before giving up, and my dad opened it within 20 seconds of having it in his hands. We had 3 nights of delicious food… strangely, none of which was . My grandmother is a great cook, but there were some Texas specialties that we wanted to go to because my dad really enjoys them every time he comes.

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research

Reflections on the Summer...

As I wrapped up my last few weeks of my research project in Houston, I realized that I learned a lot of things. Probably the most important thing I learned is that I want to go to med school…

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culture

Hello from London!

Hi everyone! I made it safely! :D I almost missed my connection in Washington, DC, because my first flight was delayed 45 minutes…I ran (like Usain Bolt…haha gotta put in something for the Olympics :P) from D12 to C1 in 10 mins to make it to the second flight. When I arrived, I got through immigration perfectly fine, but unfortunately my checked in luggage didn’t make the connection. So, I’m hoping it arrives today. Anyways, I was able to meet up with Cici Li, a senior ChemE who is studying abroad at Cambridge, at London Heathrow airport (its really big!) even though we ended up in different terminals than expected. We took the Tube (London’s public transportation system-which really gets you everywhere, much more convenient than the LA Metro) to meet up with Joel and George, two UCL students who were previously at Caltech as exchange students for an entire year. They took us around London the entire afternoon, and needless to say, I’m really excited for UCL! The university is really in the heart of London and everything is within walking distance. The weather was beautiful (Cici must have brought the lovely California sunshine with her :P) and I took lots of photos so enjoy!

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culture

Ranch-venture!

Here are a couple belated pictures from my awesome weekend on Amy’s real Texas ranch! When we arrived, we went on a tour of the 44-acre property and saw the garden, pastures, 2 ponds, and COWS! Then we got to spend some time shooting clay pigeons in one of the pastures and hanging out by the ponds. Amy built a floating hammock/raft with her dad and brother earlier this year - it can be seen in some of the pictures below. They did all the buoyancy and force calculations to make sure it would float and not easily capsize. It was awesome to get to see parts of the Texas country - definitely different than Houston! Here are some pictures!

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research

Adventure Summary.

Summer at Caltech is a very interesting time. Although Caltech is on a quarter system, we only have three quarters per year, each ten weeks long. The fourth quarter is the summer quarter and is about 14 weeks long. Caltech makes a point of not teaching any classes (except for a limited-seating scientific writing course) during the summer term and discourages Techers from taking courses at other universities. This is because a key feature of Caltech is its research, and summer is expected to be a time when Techers get their hands dirty in some real science with no excuse that they are too busy with schoolwork.

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culture

Fireworks and Ferries

Hello, This was our last weekend here at CERN, therefore we found it fitting to announce the beginning of the end with fireworks! Our house and the people from our team who live in the house down the street from us set up a potluck (kinda) and then set off some fireworks that we bought from the grocery store. It was a lot of fun sitting around, watching Dragon Ball Z in French, eating great food, talking about particle physics, and almost setting other houses on fire… a pretty typical evening. We actually lucked out that it was raining lightly so that we didn’t have to worry about actually starting a fire.

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research

Here we go again... (And Taylor Swift)

Hey Kiddies, me again, writing to tell you about some life experience or other of mine. On today’s agenda: Preseason, Moving back to tech, and why I care about Taylor Swift.

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global

Cow-venture!

Last weekend, Nadia, Amy, our friend Neal and I all headed up to the real Texas ranch that Amy’s family owns. It’s about 90 minutes outside of Houston, and it’s one of the most “country Texas” places I’ve been so far.

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research

Sur le pont d'Avignon

So I don’t know about everybody else but I definitely danced there This weekend Lisa and I went to Avignon, to old Papal city in the south of France. During the Catholic Schism it was home to Popes and AntiPopes. To us, it was just cool to see some well preserved medieval structures.

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research

Irrelevant, Unrelated pictures

I have a handful of pictures I had been meaning to post just for fun, but they didn’t really seem to fit in with anything… so now they fit in together as a post of irrelevant, unrelated pictures.

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research

Zürich Street Parade

This weekend I went to Zurich to see ETH Zurich for grad school, and of course because one of the largest techno parades was happening. It was pretty funny because we arrived early on Saturday as things were just setting up and got a chance to see the city before and after the party. Zurich is one of the cleanest cities in the world but if someone came by that night they would think it was the end of the world with all of the trash, broken glass and more than half-naked people everywhere. It was a pretty exciting time. The parade went from 1 pm to midnight so we went in the early afternoon to watch things get set up. People had the most ridiculous outfits. There were many bizarrely colored people, cross-dressers, and then many things I can’t really explain. There will also be much sensored from this weekend as most is not suitable for a young audience… sorry, don’t want to get fired/suspended/yelled at by parents.

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culture

The Merry Wanderers of the Night

…The sheer unadulterated stress! Thespians are alive and well at Caltech, and never more so than now, the last week before our drama group, TACIT, performs A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one of Shakespeare’s many comedies. The last week in drama productions is known as Hell Week, and depending on your roll you could run obscenely long hours on your production. Lead actors basically dedicate all their free time to the play during this week. As such, the courtyard outside Ricketts is being used every night for rehearsals of the famous play. The heads of the production crew run them ragged (for good reason, mind you, but still) in order to get the play ready in time. Which is actually quite funny, both from my perspective as someone not in the drama club (I bear a charmed life, really) and as someone who knows that AMND has a botched play in it. Welp.

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culture

Sampling Monte Carlo

The city was very pretty but fairly hot and humid, at least in comparison to the Geneva area and San Diego, where I’m from. Still, it was probably the best layover I’ve ever had, much better than waiting in an airport.

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culture

Happy Birthday!

Unlike myself, most Techers cannot invite all of their friends to their parent’s house for their birthday. So how do we celebrate? Usually, some sort of scheming is involved, whether it’s securing a car so we can kidnap a friend and go out to dinner, or working with their parents to get a cake from Caltech Dining Services. At the very least, during the busiest times of year and when we’re all broke, we’ll pool together ingredients, secretly bake a cake, and then gather as many people from the house as we can find to sing happy birthday.

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research

The Science of Art

Once again feeling deprived of surf and sun, I organized another trip to my hometown, Laguna Beach, a la my previous post,Home to the Beach, for last Sunday. We spent the afternoon checking out some tide pools

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Spotlight


academics

My Trip to the Galapagos!

It’s been over three months since my trip to the Galapagos, and I am still thinking about it. For seven days, we all woke up at 5:30 am on the boat, ate breakfast together, and went out as the sun was rising on our morning hike to catch frigatebirds mating or iguanas spewing salt from their nostrils. Our days were spent snorkeling with turtles, sea lions, and schools of fish, and our nights were spent sitting on the bow of the ship, talking all together under the stars. It was truly a spring break I will never forget.

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culture

Caltech Food Tour

Caltech may be a small campus, but it has a large variety of food options. There are three main dining locations on campus — The Lee F. Browne Dining Hall, the Hameetman Center (which houses our beloved Red Door Cafe), and the Broad Café.

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academics

Some Late-Night Stress-Saving Food Runs

Midterms kept up its unrelenting attack on my sanity this week – at least a little bit. And how did I solve this? Two words.

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global local culture

Quick Trip to the Beach

Although there are a lot of smaller things, such as midterm smoothies and milkshakes (Blacker does something similar to this) and some larger things like Faculty Dessert Night, the soc team usually agrees that beach trip is the most work.

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