A requirement of most engineering degrees at Clemson is the completion of a design course. I am currently taking the Civil Engineering design course, also known as Capstone, this semester. I kid you not, 100% of the grades in Capstone are decided on completing different aspects of the project, 75% being just the final report and presentation of the final report. Basically the project is designed to be a simpler version of a design project that encompasses all aspects of our major. As a group of four our team has to design a building, design the transportation aspects of the site, plan the storm water management for the site and complete all the construction estimates and scheduling for the project.
Thursday was our groups due date for our preliminary design, and we worked our butts off to finish the project on time. The past couple of weeks have been filled with late nights, panic attacks, skipped classes and a notorious all-nighter. for example we have to turn in weekly time cards, just like we would in the real world, and this week our time card read that as a group we worked over 110 hours. Needless to say our group has been working around the clock on this project, not having much time to think about anything else. We finished our project in time and turned it in, it was a few minutes late due to lab issues - the lab needs to invest in more hole punchers that work and better printers. We were all a little disappointed that it was late, but relieved that we had it finished and turned in.
The sense of relief that washes over me after turning in that huge project (it ended up being around 60+ pages) is refreshing, it was somewhat comparable to the whole "Calm after the storm" phenomena. I literally haven't had time to take a break and breath working up to the due date, and I was stressing, panicing and working around the clock and so when I got home after lab I felt like I was finally free, and I was calm, relaxed and exhausted. I had worked on the project through the night wednesday night so I hadn't slept in over 24 hours. I literally ate lunch, then took a nap when I got home yesterday around noon. I didn't wake up until Cole got home at 6pm, and then we went to bed around 10 and I slept through the night. I guess you could say I am a bit sleep deprived...I slept 15 hours, and I am still tired.
The past few weeks, with the project looming heavily over me it was all but impossible to keep the blog up to date. I plan on posting a life update and a puppy update tomorrow.
Until then Happy Friday!
