UCSD COSMOS Cluster 7

I haven't blogged in 3 days because I've been working on my group project. That is, however, basically all I've done for the past 3 days of classes. On Wednesday, we spent the morning building our model of an actin protofilament. We started off with a 24 story 5-bar tower, but it ended up being way too soft. In the end, we used a 9 story 4-bar tower. Obviously it was stiffer just because it was shorter, but the rubber bands used were also doubled up to make the structure even stiffer. In the afternoon, we tested the stiffness of the structure. That night, I entered our data into Excel, did our calculations, and graphed the results. I spent all of Thursday's class doing the poster. Last night we went over our presentation and then I did the archival PowerPoint slide. And today in the afternoon we have our presentations for the cluster faculty.

So, activities for the past few days. Wednesday night was the last COSMOS dance, a black-and-white themed one. Half my suite basically stood outside and just talked. They had nice refreshments there: mocktails (I liked the margaritas, but they were a bit too icy), rolls, pretzels, and three huge cakes. After the dance, we went back to our suites, where we had a 12:00 light's out. (The dance went until 10:30.) Most of us continued working on our projects. Yesterday night was the fashion show, which never materialized, and the haunted campus tour, which I again missed signing up for. Activity time was optional, though, and I was grateful in the end that I got the extra time to work on my archival slide instead of going on the tour.

It's so sad to think that today is our last day of COSMOS. These four weeks have gone by faster than I could ever have imagined, but they have also been some of the most fun and amazing ones of my life. I'll miss everyone I got to know here from our floor, our cluster, and everywhere else! I'd like to thank all of our professors (Dr. Vera, Dr. Oliveira, Dr. Skelton), TA's (Ms. Green, Daniel), and Teacher Fellow (Ms. Nicely) for providing such an interesting yet challenging academic experience. For giving us such an incredibly enjoyable and fun time outside of the classroom, I want to thank all of the Residential Life staff, especially my floor RA's, Ami and Cristina, and my cluster RA's, Amanda and Matt. And thank you to all of the COSMOS administrators who made the program possible. COSMOS has been such a wonderful experience for me, and just thank you to everyone who made it possible!!!!

~CS