This exciting opportunity set me on course to cross the country on a motorcycle. I set out on my adventure with high hopes that I would make it all the way to Vancouver on my bike. Instead, my motorcycle broke down in the middle of South Dakota. Desperate and out of options, I was lucky that a couple of complete strangers stopped to help me out. I will always be grateful for the compassion they showed me. Simple gestures like letting me use their phone and driving me to the bus stop meant the world to me in my time of need. Although I am saddened by the loss of my motorcycle, I learned some important lessons on that trip.

I am sure that I will have many stories to share about my new job and my adventures in Vancouver – so look out for more posts soon!

Cheers,

Carl

For me, the decision of whether I should stay in Ottawa for the summer or return home has been a bit of a difficult one. The summer after my second year of university was the first summer that I stayed in Ottawa. I found myself a job at Carleton and I enjoyed living in the city throughout the summer months. As this summer approached, I had a hard time deciding if I wanted to stay in Ottawa, go home, or even try living in a new city. Ottawa won! I returned to the job I had last year at Carleton’s Conference Services office and have even started taking some summer courses to get ahead for my fourth year.

I’ve mentioned it before, and I’m going to say it again – the Carleton campus is absolutely breathtaking. During the winter, the Carleton campus is beautiful, but during the summer, it is incredible. Waking up early and walking down to watch the sunrise over the Ottawa River is one of my favourite things about this campus.

Ottawa in the summer is such a fun experience. There is always something to do and see. Right now the Tulip Festival is taking place. This is the first of many festivals that take place in Ottawa throughout the summer – it’s such a fun time of year in the city!

The summer months are also great for catching up on your rest and relaxation and for getting amped up for the new school year. I am sure that some of you reading this are finishing up your grade 12 year of high school and are preparing to make the transition to university. I remember how exciting this time of year was. However, I also know that it can be a bit overwhelming. My advice to you, as someone who has made this transition, is to try and not stress too much. Enjoy your summer and the time you have with your  friends and family before you move away for school. And remember, you’ll be living and studying with hundreds of other first year students who are in the exact same situation as you!

I wish you all a happy and safe summer season.

Thinking back to my final year of high school, I can still remember avidly reading the CU Blogs. In particular, I can remember reading the ‘farewell’ blogs of several graduating students. Reflecting on these blogs, it is difficult to fathom that I too am now one of those graduating students who is passing on the proverbial torch! As cliché as it may sound, it still feels like only yesterday that I was pulling up to Carleton’s residences with my Father in a rental car full of my suitcases. They say that time flies and in my case it most certainly has.

As I have mentioned in previous blogs, deciding to attend university out-of-province was one of the biggest decisions that I ever had to make. However, I can now say for sure that coming to Carleton was definitely one of the best decisions of my life. I have developed steadfast relationships with fellow classmates as well as my professors and truly now call Carleton my home away from home. People often say that you do not realize what you have until it is gone and considering how comfortable I have become at Carleton, I know that I will be missing its familiarity and comfort after I officially walk across the stage and receive my diploma in June.

As I prepare to embark on the next chapter of my life, I imagine that my feelings of nervousness are likely very similar to those of you who are about to graduate from high school and pursue post-secondary studies. Change can certainly be a daunting prospect, but it can also be an exciting one! If I had not been brave enough to pursue change and attend school outside of my home province and away from my high school friends, I would likely be leading a much different life than I am now. In fact, whenever I feel nervous about pursuing law school, I remind myself of how positively Carleton has changed my life. In that light, I view the change from undergraduate to graduate studies as one of excitement and possibility.

Some of the best years of my life were spent as a Carleton Raven, and as my undergraduate journey comes to a close, I can only imagine what wonderful experiences you too will have during your time at Carleton.

Thank you for sharing in my Carleton experiences over these past few years!

Your soon to be Ravens Alumna,

Maddie

Students enrolled in the Exhibition Design class are also responsible for planning the annual Industrial Design Graduation Exhibition (which I discussed in my last post). This involves coordinating the promotions and graphics, communicating with participating students etc.

In other news, I am still searching for an internship. I’ve sent out a bunch more applications since my last post and have had two interviews. I also have two potential interviews coming up in the next two weeks and am hopefully that one of those turns out to be the one! I’ll keep you posted.

Chad

The fourth year students have been working really hard on their design projects for the exhibition and the results show it! The exhibit will feature 33 design projects completed by six different groups of students: Entrepreneur, Futurelab 2030, Harambee, Inclusive Sport, Interface Design and Providence. The design projects are based on a range of topics including the challenges of day-to-day life in a wheelchair and how that could be improved, how to create a hand-powered tricycle that can be manufactured with local materials in rural Africa, improving the travel mug, futuristic stretcher concepts that could greatly improve patient safety during transportation, and many more!

The projects will be shown off at the 35^th annual Industrial Design Graduation Exhibit taking place in the atrium of the University Centre at Carleton University from April 20-23, 2013.

Hope to see you there!

Chad

I had a lot of fun last week at the Carleton Undergraduate Economics Society’s end of year wine and cheese event! It’s so nice to network within your faculty and talk with your profs and peers. I love the group of people who are in my cohort as second year economics majors, and I definitely am enjoying getting to know our upper-year friends. I’ve been elected Vice President Communications of the Economics Society for the next year, so hopefully I’ll get to know all the incoming Econ students really well too!

The event had two fabulous speakers, Chuck Freedman and David Longworth, who are both former Deputy Governors of the Bank of Canada, and talked about monetary policy in the modern context. I had some time to speak with them before the event, and they both have some pretty amazing stories about both Canadian politics and going abroad to assist other central bankers. Over the summer, they’re offering classes for upper-year and grad students providing an insider’s look into central banking in Canada, definitely a must-register if you’re interested in monetary policy!

In other news, I just handed in my last assignment, and recently attended Carleton University Equal Voice Chapter’s AGM! It was such an amazing group of dynamic women, who all united under the same goal, regardless of political stripes: get more women in politics, and get them elected. I was elected Vice President Internal, and I’m so, so incredibly excited to be a part of a group that is going to do some absolutely amazing things on campus next year, I can feel it!

For those of you who are prospective students, and are still grappling over the decision of which school to come to, I wish you lots of luck and leave you with my criteria for choosing a school. Take some time and think about your priorities. What do you want out of your university experience? Once you really know what you want and where you want to go, the right school will be very apparent and I, for one, hope it’s Carleton.

My group started by coming up with some ideas – some complicated, some bizarre and some that were not feasible. We ended up choosing something simple and elegant. The design was an acrylic glass structure that had a motor and rotor which could be mounted and bolted to a measuring device.

The most important part was getting the rotor just right. If the rotor wasn’t balanced properly the structure would vibrate and in extreme cases break. This took a lot of time to refine because each rotor was hand carved from balsa wood.

Luckily, our design worked really well and we ended up winning the completion with an average of 110 grams of lift generated.

It was a very interesting competition. There were some designs that either broke or generated no lift, however, there were also some very interesting and complex designs. A few teams decided to build coaxial counter rotating props which I found to be very interesting, but also very gutsy. Whether each group won or lost, what counts is that we had fun and learned new things. I especially love challenges like this!

Raven’s Racing consists of two teams, one comprised of fourth-year undergraduate engineering students and another comprised of volunteer students from various academic programs and years.

Read more about the Ravens Racing Teams!

Find out more about the Carleton Law Society’s victory!