WPI

I am at WPI, and have spent the day visiting classes and seeing the campus. I left at 7:45 this morning, dropped my mother off at work in Springfield, and, after some brief confusion in the area of I-290, got on the Mass Pike (I-90 E). I got to the apartment at about 9:45, and after dropping my sleeping bag there, had to run to avoid being late to the first class, which was Chemistry Thermodynamics. Although it was a large lecture-style class, rather impersonal, I enjoyed it very much. The professor was very interesting, and he was lecturing on entropy, enthalpy, and something called the Gibbs energy of a reaction, which I learned is essentially the “free” energy left over in a reaction that is available to do non-PV work (work that is not changing the pressure or volume of the gas, such as electric, thermal, etc.).
We then proceeded to GOV2311-Environmental Policy and Law. This was a two-hour long class. It was much smaller, probably about 15 students. The professor seemed incredibly smart and interesting. The class went over the midterm exam, which they had just been handed back, and talked about its content, as well as some other stuff related to product and process innovation, and regulations that typically affect these things. The class was supposed to end with four or five students presenting the work they had done so far on their final research papers to the class, but there was only time for two. The first student talked about pesticides used in farms in several states damaging ecosystems in the Chesapeake bay, including Obama and McCain’s plans for cleaning up the Chesapeake bay and other jeopardized aquatic ecosystems such as the Great Lakes. The second student talked about e-waste; discarded computer and electronic components such as CRTs and other lead- and mercury-bearing parts, and the sort of regulations that applied or didn’t apply to their disposal.
This class was also interesting because I recognized someone in it. One of the students had attended Holy Name High School, and I had faced them several times in court during Mock Trial. They remembered me once I introduced myself to them after the class.
The third and final class I saw was Linear Algebra, another large lecture. Again, a very interesting professor, and very interesting material; the topic was matrices and linear transformations of vectors from n- to m-space, and under what circumstances we could demonstrate that such a transformation was reversible.
After Linear Algebra, I headed over to the Admissions office, in hopes of getting some kind of impromptu interview. I was unable to get one on such short notice, but I did get a short tour with a Biology major, which was very interesting. There is a group information session tomorrow morning at 10:00 which I may go to, and I left my cel number at the front desk in case any spaces for interviews open up between now and then.
I am hanging around until 7:30, when I am leading the Kung-fu class. I still haven’t decided exactly what I’ll do for that, but it should be very interesting.