Saket Vora

Today was Day 1 of the MERIT program, which is the REU I’m doing this summer at the University of Maryland-College Park. We had a short orientation, campus tour, and I got to meet with my advisor for the summer. My research topic is ‘High Powered Microwave Effects on Communication Electronics’. I’ll figure out what exactly I’ll be doing within that field tomorrow morning. There are about 16 or 20 of us MERIT students, which are all ECE-related. But there is another REU program called TREND which is for math and physics students. We’ll have some seminar and events together over the summer, and two TREND students will be working in the same lab as me. My MERIT partner is Konstantin Khrustov, who is a rising senior at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Really cool guy, we walked around campus a bit after the orientation meeting and scouted out an auxiliary gymnasium near our apartment complex.

They have put all of us MERIT/TREND students in a housing complex across the road from the main university, behind the rather expansive Fraternity Court. It’s about a 10 minute walk to my research lab, 15 minute walk to the Stamp Student Union, and a 25 minute walk to the main Campus Recreation Center. That auxiliary gym I mentioned above is great cause its only a 2 minute walk, and has a weight room, fitness equipment, basketball court. There are four people occupying two double rooms in my suite. My roommate is fellow NC State student Ross Pleban, also a rising senior. Next door is Daniel Cheung, a happy-go-lucky rising junior from Princteon, and Eric, who goes to UMD. Below us is Konstantin and Jeremy from the Citadel in South Carolina. We went grocery shopping this evening and Konstantin and Jeremy bought what seemed like a truckload of food. We bought a lot of basic stuff today for our apartment, but I’ll pick up some more stuff next week. I’ll try hitting up IKEA tomorrow for some dinnerware too. Overall the people I met are cool guys. I look forward to getting to know them better over this summer.

The University of Maryland campus is really nice — large grass fields, pleasing architecture, spacious. Their football stadium and basketball arena is contiguous with the campus. They are celebrating their 150th year anniversary this year. I’ll start carrying my camera with me and I’ll upload some pictures soon.

Sapana arrived back in Raleigh on Monday from her semester long study abroad at King’s College in London. Nate was kind enough to greet her at the airport and even made these signs with bears on it saying ‘welcome back Sapana’. Sachi started work at Glaxo on Monday too, but so far she says that it is mostly training. Sapana will start at Glaxo with her former colleagues this upcoming Monday. Over the past few days I’ve been trying to fix a bunch of computer issues. The hard drives in the computer my mom uses went down so bad that one them is most likely physically damaged. Can’t even slave it on to another computer to get the files off. I backed up the other one and we wiped it clean and put Ubuntu Linux on it. So now my mom can have fun learning a new operating system. :)

Last Saturday I tagged along with my dad to play golf with his buddies. We got there late and so I couldn’t take a few swings on the driving range. I walked up to a par 3 hole having never swung a golf club in over 10 months! Needless to say, I didn’t do so hot. But I had a good time anyway, and in a little bit Greg and I are going to go by a driving range so he can teach me a few pointers. He’ll be golfing too this weekend. On Wednesday Nate took me and my two sisters over to Top of the Hill restaurant in Chapel Hill. We had a great time and tried four kinds of beer. It was just a really really great day, weather-wise.

The days before I leave for Maryland are proving to be very busy! This weekend we are getting some plans in place to see the new X-Men movie. We’ll see how it turns out, though admittedly my expectations are fairly low.

I’m currently reading Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond as the first book on my summer reading list; so far its great. I’ll do a more complete write-up on it after I finish.

Sachi and I headed out to my apartment to finish moving out my things from the apartment. I met up with Pat Monigle, the friend whose room I stayed in this past semester. He told us about the great time he had at the University of Hawaii at Hilo and the adventures he had down there.

Today I got to see one of my best friends from high school – Keith Dowd. He will be in Raleigh this summer doing research for the Governor’s Commission on Crime. I haven’t seen him for over two years! We went to a Panera Bread and ended up spending three hours sitting outside talking and catching up with each other. Keith told us about his research in psychology and how things have been going at Appalachian State for him. It’s impressive – he’s already been published and will likely have another paper soon, has presented papers/projects at several conferences, spent some time abroad in Ghana, and is doing in-depth undergraduate research. I know very little about the study of psychology in general so I find it very interesting to hear about.

We also segued into other topics, such as the rise of religious fundamentalism and the dangers it has for this country and for the advancement of knowledge. Even though Keith and I come from different backgrounds, it was astonishing to see how closely aligned our beliefs have become. So many times it was like he was speaking words right out of my mouth. At one point, an elderly gentlemen walked over and I first thought he was going to ask us to be a little bit quieter (we were talking a bit loudly). But instead, he said that he couldn’t help but overhear our ‘vibrant dialogue’ as well as some of our comments about Christianity and wanted to tell us that not all Christians were like what we had portrayed. We explained that we were mainly criticizing the hardcore fundamentalist Christians and he even agreed that it gives Christianity a bad name. He went on to say how empowering his relationship with a merciful and loving God was and the importance of His influence in the world. He didn’t want to preach or anything, and I believe him. It was nice to see how people could respectfully over their opinion/perspective without being condescending, rude, or intrusive. We welcomed it.

After a while (and too much coffee), we headed over to NC State and I showed Keith the new engineering buildings on Centennial Campus before going over to Chris’s apartment, where we met up with Chris, Kalyan, and later Mike. We had a nice dinner at the Mellow Mushroom pizzeria (where Keith recounted a thrilling story of an being in the back of a taxi whose erratic behaving driver got chased and shot in the leg by an AK-47 wielding police officer late one night in Ghana), before heading home.

It was an immensely fulfilling day.

I have added the final report for my independent research study that I completed this semester with Dr. Tom Conte, Director for the Center of Embedded Systems Research at NC State. The paper is about a process for taking a filter from a digital mindset and implementing it in an analog scheme. It heavily focuses on how to map poles and zeros on the z-plane to the s-plane. Feel free to comment here if you have questions.

Meander over to the Writings section for more…

All my grades have come in:

ECE 403 – Analog Electronics………… A
ECE 435 – Control Systems…………… A+
ECE 492 – Independent Research…….A+
ENG 331 – Technical Writing………….. A
IE 311 – Engineering Economics……… B

I was pleasantly surprised with the Control Systems and Independent Research courses. I’ll upload my research paper if anyone is interested in skimming over it. I was hoping for something better in IE 311, but whatever. I really disagreed with the professor’s teaching and testing style. Overall, not a bad way to end this semester. I really took a hit in the mid-term exams with some ridiculously stupid mistakes.
A few of my good friends are graduating this year; some after four years and a few after just three years.

Nate Derbinsky, Computer Science
We met each other after seeing our names appear on the top scorers in Mr. Genter’s high school physics class. We were in different sections, but soon got to know each other through mutual intellectual prowess, computer club, and literary journal. I first heard about the Park Scholarship through Nate, and he was instrumental in guiding me through that application process, and selflessly spent numerous hours showing me around NC State and helping me make my college decision. Nate has a lot of well-paved roads he can take in his life, but he’s always looking for challenges and pushing himself to new heights.

Mary Williard, Physics & Math
I met Mary as a Park scholar, for we were both in the class of 2007. We worked together in Honors 201 with Dr. Greene and as committee members for Learning Lab II. Her boyfriend (now fiance) was a computer engineering student. Mary and her generous parents hosted parties at their lovely house with a real wood-fired pizza oven. Mary is incredibly sharp — she won a Goldwater, was a finalist for the Hertz fellowship, and she was a recipient of the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research fellowship. She is graduating a year early and is going to Stanford this fall to get a Ph.D in physics.

Brandyn Lee, Mathematics
Brandyn and Nate knew each other from Calculus III class in a similar way that Nate and I met each other — common intellectual prowess. They both took Physics 208H – Electrical & Magnetism, the same time that Mike and I took it. We formed a natural study group. Brandyn, being a mathematician, always had a unique perspective to our study sessions, and we formed a tradition of going out for pizza the night before the exam. A very easy going and open person, Brandyn is a friend with whom you can spend five hours in one sitting in a free-flowing discussion from philosophy, culture, science, and mathematics. I remember in the days before our final exams in my second semester at college, Brandyn swung by my dorm room one night and we tried to understand the physically meaning of the calculus concept of ‘curl.’ Six hours and one of those epic conversations later, we still didn’t have an answer but had a great time.

Kevin Henderson, Chemistry
Kevin is a fellow triplet who we got to know in high school. Incredibly sharp, he constantly aced all his science classes and competitions. In his senior year, he placed top 12 in the country for chemistry. Kevin has an inrrestible charm about him and can make anyone laugh. He can go long hours at high energy (probably powered by an insatiable appetite for Skittles). Kevin was a principle member of the Green Hope Science Olympiad too. After spending a year at NC State, he transferred to UNC and a had a great time. He has attended numerous conferences and his undergraduate research work has won several awards. He has used polymers to make functional molds of fly eyes. Kevin is graduating a year early and will be attending Northwestern University in Illinois this fall to start a Ph.D program in chemistry and bio-materials.

Naman Shah, Environmental Science with Health Concentration
Naman came to Green Hope when we were in our Junior Year, and quickly became a close friend. His family is Gujurati like we are, and they moved into our neighborhood. Fueled by a powerful innate sense of justice and compassion for his fellow man, Naman is deeply committed to improving the lives of those less fortunate. He is open, tolerant, and a joy to discuss any topic with. Oh, did I mention a bit mischevious too? He went to Chapel Hill and in just three years has gotten a lot out of the college experience. He has done substantial research with malaria and has made trips to Cambodia and Bolivia for conferences. He is an active member of Hunger Lunch, and has gone on several trips for them as well. Naman will be going to India this summer to work on a field team for polio vaccination, and then continue research at UNC in the fall before entering a medical program.

Michael Lee, Computer Science
Mike and I met in our first semester at Green Hope, and our friendship grew throughout high school. Tough we had our disagreements with politics, Mike has always been great to discuss things with and we have common interests in many other things. In our senior year we did a summer camp in multimedia studies at NC State and he played our valient Jedi warrior with dogged determination. We roomed together our first year at NC state. Through Mike I have been better informed on a great many things. He changed my opinion baseball, which was quite a feat. He got me to thinking about sports and politics in a way I had never done so before. Mike is extremely well read– I know of no other person who keeps themselves aware of as many different topics as Mike. Committed to his goal of becoming a game developer, Mike sought out opportunities at NC State — being part of the Game Development Club, doing summer internships, visiting gaming related conferences, and keeping an eye to the future. He will be graduating early and was accepted to the highly touted Digital Media Studies department at Georgia Tech where he will work on his graduate degree.

Nader Moussa, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Physics
Nader Moussa. I’m not even sure where to begin. In fact, I think I’m going to hold off on this character until a later time.

I’ll post some news later when I finalize my apartment for next year and I’ll put up my summer reading list.

….with school. Was a weird last day too. I went to bed at 5am after finishing my research paper for Dr. Conte. Woke up at 10am and went to turn in the report. It was a good semester overall, I think. I got swamped with term projects in the final quarter and I wish I was able keep myself ahead of that a bit better. Mike and I had a good habit of going on Saturdays to play basketball at the gym, but that got put on the backburner. I enjoyed that and hope to keep a routine going while I’m at Maryland this summer.

I’ve got two grades back so far; an A in technical writing and an A in analog electronics. For all the agony I experienced about that op-amp project, I ended up getting a 98 on it and I aced the final exam. I really enjoyed that class. Hopefully my last three grades will be up before Thursday.

Tomorrow I’ll be wrapping up loose ends here. Turn in some library books, my parking pass, clean up the apartment. From tomorrow to Saturday I’ll be spending each night at someone’s graduation party. I’m both happy that they are graduating and moving on to better things, but still kinda sad to see them go.

I met with Mr. Warren, the landlord for some of my friends, to check out an open room he has at the same apartment complex as Chris, Kalyan, and Josh. I’m still pursuing other options so I’m not quite sure yet where I’ll be staying next year.

The Stanley Cup playoffs have been really great so far. The ‘New’ NHL is thrilling to watch and we have had some amazing games. The Carolina Hurricanes are 2-0 against our playoff nemesis the New Jersey Devils in the 2nd round. The last game is a great example: the game is tied 1-1, and with 20 seconds left in the game the Devils score a goal. Usually that’s it…I mean, they have played over 40 minutes without scoring  a goal and now you need to score in less than 20 seconds in order to go into overtime. What happens? Eric Staal scores with 3 seconds left! The home crowd goes nuts. Then we win in under five minutes in overtime. Absolutely incredible. Watching any of my Carolina teams (Panthers for football, Hurricanes for hockey, NC State for basketball) requires a strong heart capable of going through intense periods of stress, anxiety, tension, and desperation; which only makes the experience all the more fulfilling.

It’s late, so I’ll write later.

I took my ECE 403 (Analog Electronics) exam this morning and think I did pretty well. Hopefully I got above a 90 on it. I hung out a bit afterward with Nate because the CSC department was having their senior design project presentations. One group created a map of the NC State campus for the Unreal Tournament engine, but they kept fiddling with their machine as I stood by so I never got to see it in action.

We were getting our power meters replaced with fancy new digital ones at the apartment today, but this meant the power was going to be off for several hours. I went over to Greg’s house to crash a bit; gave Donny money for the Radiohead concert. I’m pumped — I get to see one of my favorite bands of all-time on June 2nd in Philadelphia. Hopefully Donny will be able to get the tickets this Saturday.

Greg and I talked a bit about our senior design project a bit. Another bit of good news: I was able to get into the science class I wanted. My schedule pretty much complete now so barring any bizarre acts, it’s finished.

I finished up my final report for English 331 – Technical Writing today. What a useless class…it is just an exercise in common sense.

I got so busy with projects during the latter third of the semester that I completely neglected to square away my housing situation for next year. I dropped the ball on it pretty badly so now I’m scrambling to find a place. I met with Mr. Warren, the landlord for Brandyn and Nate’s apartment, and he has an opening in a 4 bedroom / 4 bathroom apartment. I would be sharing it with three people I don’t know. I talked with my parents for a good hour or so trying to talk it out, and at this point I just need more information. I’ll be making a bunch of calls tomorrow morning to see what the housing situation is like. I know Caitlin (who is in Ireland now) is looking for a place and maybe Pavak can drop his housing and stay with me if I find a 2 bedroom place. Because next semester will be senior design and generally crazy, I don’t want to stay at my home in Cary. Being close to campus when things get insane is a useful thing.

On Friday morning I have my ECE 435 – Control Systems exam. After I make the apartment calls in the morning I’m devoting the entire rest of the day to studying for this exam. We get some equation sheets, but there is just a lot of material.

I’ll update this during the weekend.