Pics of eGrabber, my CEO, my colleages, my fellow interns

 
click here for more photos 

Stanford Classes

So after taking 4 classes in Stanford,  one Business plan (2 failed ideas), One Elevator pitch competition, 2 Business Plan Competitions, 1 Business Case + Analysis, 75 classes, 9 deadlines, 2 exams, and 1 heart stopping moment,

I am glad I survived relatively unscarred.

(=

Mind you, Stanford Students are smart! Why do I say this?

I took an Mech Engine Module here (bad choice....way bad choice.)  Fuel Cell fundamentals. I thought well, you know.. level 2000 module.. shouldn't be too tough, and the pre-requsites were Thermodynamics and engineering maths. Both of which I (thought) have covered.

So I happily went for class, the lecturer was nice and interesting. And the subject was interesting too. Then came tutorials..

They ask you questions like:

Qn:Why do you think the fuel cell is more practical than standard combustion engine?

my answer; 2 sentences, 3 lines.

my classmates' answer: 2 pages of graphs and explaination, generated from one long page of equations and workings from Mathlab.

When we got our assignements back, no surprise that I get scores between 34 - 75 while my classmates average 115/100.

Yes. They acutally score 115 over a total of 100. Incredible.

Then I start to know them better, and I talk to them.

me: so where are you from?

Kim Byuen Yong: Oh, I am from Korea, did my honours at XXXX University in Korea, so I'm here for further studies.

me: so you are master student?

Kim: yep.

me: what about you chang?

Chang: Oh i did my undergrad at Michigan.

me: so you are master student here also?

Chang: that's right.

me: Zhengjie, you master student also?

zhengjie: no, I am doing my phD

me: !???!?

zhengjie: Ryan and Lee over there also phD students, we working in the same lab.

So that kinda sums up the story. I am in the freakin wrong class. The only year 2 mech engine student seating among a class of pHDs and Master Students. 

So it wasn't surprising that I flung both my mid-terms and finals. (that what they call final exam) But luck was with me cos somehow, the tutorials were graded and maybe they took pity because I was in the wrong class. The last I checked, I had less than half of the marks for Midterms and Finals but I still got a C! To think i slogged so hard for the exams. Well worth it!

Yeyyyyyy!

Morale of the story, don't think of doing post grad technical classes, especially in stanford, if you don't have what it takes.

Sky Diving Trip, May 2006

For the uninformed, I used to fly planes. Yes, jets in the sky. That cute guy in the photo is me. yups.

But jumping out of one!!! Hmm pilots are trained to work with parachutes.. but jumping out of planes strapped onto a parachute is definitely not one of our motto. (ps. I am a student now because you see me in NUS slogging away)

So.. sky diving can be a little uncomfortable for first timers. One thing, it's very loud. The wind that rushes pass your ears. My advice is that get either

a) a ear plug (they don't provide one of cos!)

b) get some form of helmet that covers your ears (which they don't provide also of cos)

Oh.. and everyone (except the instructors look really horrible when we are falling.. cos the wind cause the many folds of the fats on our face to show up ) well for the instructor that jumped with me.. that was his 12th jump of the day.. can you believe it? and it was only 2 pm.

Here's some photos to get everyone excited!

It's perfectly safe, but not cheap. So go for it if you can!

haha.. I say I still prefer to fly one.