Welcome to Golden

OFF TO A GREAT START!

After a big first semester it was a bit of a relief to go back home and spend time with my family for winter break. Although it felt like a short amount of time I was ready to come back to Golden to see all of my friends and make more memorable experiences. .  Since we had a lot of free time our floor got a lot of bonding time in and it was nice to connect with all of girls on my floor. The first week of classes most of our professors went over the syllabuses and explained the course details to us; it was an easy week back.

Team SMART:

 One class I am looking forward to is EPICS 151. It is an engineering design class where I will be getting a taste of working with a team of students to complete a project for a real life client. The class is all hands-on work and collaboration with your assigned team. My EPICS team took our team photo and received our assigned our project and client already. We are designing an improved medical range of motion measuring tool. I am excited to see our progress in the next couple of weeks and how far we will go with the project. I like this class because it is giving me a taste of what being an engineer will take when it comes to working with clients and other engineers

 

ART ON THE BRIX:

Our RA set up a night for all the girls on our floor to create a mural of individually painted tiles for our building wall. We went to Art on the Brix in downtown Golden, it is a modern art place where you can go and learn how to paint or just paint for fun. Not only did the mural come out beautiful but the girls and I had a great time expressing our self’s in a unique way that was outside of math and science.

  

I can’t believe it is almost the end of the semester. Finals are 1 week away and then it is back home until January. Golden is most beautiful in the fall and winter the leaves radiate the sun and at night the decorative lights in the city are luminous. My first semester here was all I thought it was going to be and more in the sense that I met lots of new people and got involved on campus with and clubs and organizations. In addition, I figured out how to be academically successful by getting help from tutors, academic workshops and one-on-one help from professors.

Making Memories

Even though school comes first keeping a good balance between school and fun activities is important. To end a week of our 3^rd exams my floor mates and I went to a SHPE social bowling event. We bought bowling shirts at our local goodwill and painted on our team name, “The IncrediBOWLS”. It was a fun time to just hang out with friends and wear goofy outfits that I will always remember. Making memories is the best part about CSM and I encourage everyone to make as many as possible while there in college.

Getting Involved

I am a current member of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) and I recently went to SHPE’s national conference in Fort Worth Texas. At the conference there were a variety of leadership and engineering based workshops hosted by different companies. Each workshop gave the members of SHPE the opportunity to network with recruiters before the big career fair. The career fair was my favorite part because the room was completely filled with well-known companies waiting to accept resumes and offer internships or jobs. The conference overall was a great leadership experience and each day was full of empowering activities that helped me see the significance of becoming an engineer.

LET IT SNOW!

Snow couldn’t have come any sooner, within the second week of October we had our first snow fall. If you’re a Colorado  Native then this doesn’t seem like anything new, however if you’re from out of state then it is a enchanting view to watch. It was awesome to see students engage in their first snow ball fight or create their first snowman.  The beauty of living on campus is to make the most of those unforgetable moments.

(Picture Taken by Kaitie Todd)

 

Midterms:

Unfortunatly, college is not all treats but Midterm exams are required for everyclass. My advice for incoming freshmen is to study one section at a time atleast a week in advance. Craming here does not work and you might find yourself a litte more stressed out then usual. Procrastination is something that will happen nomatter how hard you try to get out of the habit, but if you are really wanting to get an A then taking the time to study and use all of the school recourses will help you be successful. CASA (Center for academics services and advistmentist) is a great resource here on campus that offers tutoring, academic excellence workshops and even tips to study for each exam. CASA helped me out a lot in the workshops because they have worksheets relavent to what you are learning in class and practice exams before tests.

 

 

 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

The beautiful month of October went by like a breeze, although I was busy with school and midterm exams I still managed to make this month as fun as possible. Me and my roomate decided to really get into the Halloween spirit and decorate our dorm, a tradtion for both of us back home.  Our creativity brought a lot of spider webs, lights, candy and a ferocious spider which hung in our doorway. I couldn’t tell you how many compliments we received..or people who were too scared to come in, but in the end we both loved it! In addition to the decorations we painted pumkins and placed them outside our door. All of this was a great use of time while breaking from doing our homework and studying.

(Picture Taken by Sierra Richards)

Welcome to Golden

The big “Welcome to Golden sign was the first thing I saw as I drove into town for move in weekend and that is when the reality hit me that I was living here for the next four years. There is something about Golden that catches my eye and I cant help but love everything the beautiful town has to offer. The first weekend I was here my roommate and I went to visit the art festival and farmers market hosted at the creek right next to campus, it was an awesome day to shop and admire different pieces of art.  I remember my first week of school like it was yesterday. The weekend consisted of moving in, barbeque food, Men and Black 3 outside on a huge screen and the hypnotist who made me laugh until I could not breath! In addition to all the fun I met a lot of cool new people, I learned some neat facts about mines and I got pumped up with school spirit from the M-Climb.

Orientation:

I still cannot believe I am at Mines or that I am a new freshman. Not only is it a dream come true, but also a reality check that I am on my own in the real world. Orientation helped calm my nerves by giving valuable information to help answer some of the questions I had about classes and the campus.  I also met some new people and started getting comfortable with the people around me. I engaged in two epic games of Ultimate Frisbee, ate the most delicious food and participated in more icebreakers then I could remember. Kafadar commons was the sanctuary for all the freshmen and a place to just hang out and meet new people. The new trend I never heard about was Slack lining, people around campus set up slack lines running from one tree to another and people would balance on these lines and walk across doing different tricks. I would admit that orientation was the best weekend to start of the school year right and my advice is participate in as many new things as you can!

M-Climb

“M…I…N..E..S!!!!!” I can still hear the chants of our school song in my ears, and the feel of the white paint drenching my cloths. Ever since I heard about the traditional freshmen M climb at Mines I was excited for the day when I would leave my marked rock on the mountain. We started off at Kafador at 8 in the morning all wearing our hard hats and carrying our 10lb rocks. As we walked up to the M we were greeted by upperclassmen at different stations along the way with water, music and snacks. We sang our school song loud and proud and once we reached the top we gathered together on the M to place our rocks. Before we knew it White paint and water was being poured all over us and in a matter of seconds the paint war began! It was an epic experience I will never forget!