first impressions

I've successfully made it through 1.5 weeks of class this semester. This has given me just enough time to get thorough first impressions of my teachers. Yes, I could have had sufficient class time to get impressions last week, but not all my professors were present at that point. Now that I've had 2-3 classes, it's time to give out some "pre-season" rankings. We'll revisit this subject at the end of the semester to see how my feelings about the teacher and/or class have changed, if anything. I'll also detail some aspects of my class just so my faithful audience can get a sense of what I'm learning.

Aerospace Lab, MWF 8:00-8:50, W 2:00-4:50, Thomas Hannigan
Three parts lecture, one part lab, I was kind of unsure of what to expect about this class. After a few classes, though, I think it should be a great learning experience. Each week we'll study a different lab technique or piece of hardware, then use each in an application experiment. The class will require tons of programming, which I am very comfortable with. I cannot say the same for the rest of my class however. In fact, if we use a different programming language than the standard ones(BASIC, FORTRAN, MathCAD, Matlab, Mathematica, and Maple), we get bonus points. Guess that bulk of programming I did in Houston will finally pay off :). Mr. Hannigan is a decent teacher; I had him for my third Intro class during the first semester my sophomore year. He's kinda anal about some things, which tends to get annoying, but he's tolerable.

Aerospace Structural Analysis, MWF 1:00-1:50, Dr. Newman, Jr.
This class could very well be Mechanics of Materials II. Topics we'll cover in detail include shear and stress analysis, torsion, and strain relationships. Since Dr. Lacy's Structures class last semester I've become quite interested in the structures area of study. Dr. Newman is the father of my Vibrations teacher last semester, and I can honestly say I now know where Dr. Newman III gets his personality. I love his father's class; he's pretty much Martin Sheen with a goatee. He's got a great sense of humor too, which never hurts.

Spacecraft Attitude Dynamics, MWF 8:00-9:15, Dr. Ming Xin
Probably the class I have looked forward to the most since I declared my concentration as Astronautics. This course is basically ADCO 101, a compilation and a more detailed breakdown of everything I learned while at NASA. Whereas last semester I learned about the movement of a spacecraft treated as a point mass under influence of another mass, this semester we'll treat spacecraft as rigid bodies and study their movement about their own center of mass. VERY neat stuff. My professor is kind of quiet so far, but Chris, who had him last semester for Controls class, says he's pretty cool. I suspect Ming isn't that lively because this is the first time this class has been taught and this is his first year of teaching. Supposedly this kind of material is his specialty, so maybe he's just warming up.

Technical Writing, MWF 9:30-10:45, John Brocato
According to John(my brother), this will be one of the most applicable classes I'll take my whole time in college. Technical Writing aims to teach how to express technical ideas to others who are not always technically inclined, an ability many MANY people lack(I've witnessed firsthand at the big N). Mr. Brocato kicks so much ass; he has a very smart sense of humor, and he's very dry. Hilarious. Interesting note: first day of class he was running through the role, and he saw my name on the list. Without even saying anything he looked up, found me, and said, "You must be John Horne's brother." HAHA. He said he could tell by my face. Turns out John had Mr. Brocato a few years back. Small world.

Fluid Mechanics, MWF 11:00-12:15, Mary Wolverton
Another class I'm excited about. We're gonna learn all about hydrostatics and hydrodynamics; inviscid,turbulent flow; and compressible/imcompressible flow. VERY applicable stuff to what I'm wanting to possibly do. I had Mrs. Wolverton for Dynamics last spring, so I'm pretty familiar with her. She loved me for some reason in that class, which should make this class a breeze, other than the fact I love this material.