A Day in the Life of Caroline Conley

Year: Sophomore
Age: 20
Major: Mechanical Engineering
Hometown: Palo Alto, CA

9:30 AM

Caroline wakes up to the alarm. It’s set on radio and she snoozes only once (her self-imposed limit) and forces herself out of bed after a late night of homework. She’s ready in time to stop at the East Street Deli in the University Center (UC) for black coffee and a sesame bagel.

10:45 AM

Caroline arrives at the Mech E (Mechanical Engineering) cluster. She had intended to just print some documents for her stress analysis design project (for her mechanical engineering class aptly titled “Stress Analysis”) but the Pioneers’ Buggy Chair is there and Caroline ends up looking over some last-minute designs and material orders that they need to get their new buggy out and rolling this weekend. Spring Carnival is only a week away!

11:15 PM

At the undergraduate Mech E lab Caroline puts the finishing touches on her stress analysis design project, at least for now. It is a semester-long project and the second of three design reviews is tomorrow, where her group will present the headway that they’ve made so far on the crane-like structure they’ve designed. There are still a lot of changes to be made however…

5:30 PM

Dinner break! Caroline stops at Asiana in Newell-Simon Hall for some pepper steak with rice, one of her favorites. She had planned to catch a quick bite by herself and then get straight back to work, but runs into a friend from Red Team and they spend a few minutes catching up. Then it’s back to the stress project, which is really living up to its name at the moment…

9:15 PM

Back in her room for the first time since waking, Caroline sends out a couple emails to other ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) members who are helping her with some of the event planning particulars. As chair of the student section, she has a few guest speakers and community service projects in the works. There are some other emails from the lacrosse team, a few about buggy, a handful from her RA (Resident Assistant) and some about Mech E department events. She jots a couple of events of interest on a post-it and sticks it on her laptop, next to the reminder about lacrosse practice at 4:30 tomorrow. The weather is getting nice, so they can finally move out of the gym and onto the field!

10:30 PM

Caroline gets started on her Fluid Mechanics problem set. Luckily, this week’s assignment is not too bad and she understands all the problems on the first try, making her life tonight so much easier.

1:30 PM

Her head finally hits the pillow for some welcome R&R. She sets her alarm for 9:00 AM but is pretty satisfied with the luxury of getting close to eight hours of sleep.