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.