Shopping Guidelines for the Slow

So yesterday I had the opportunity to spend four hours observing the shopping habits of women, and I've come up with some recommendations to improve the shopping process in general for slow shoppers (not exclusively female):

1) If it doesn't scream "must have" to you, don't bother trying it on.

2) After verifying size, ask yourself, "How often will I wear it?" Keep price in mind and make your final decision.

3) If you have to think for more than a minute about whether or not to get something, you probably shouldn't get it. Why spend your money on something you're less than enthusiastic about?

4) Don't be tempted to buy something just because you've spent so much time looking for something/trying stuff on. Sunk cost is sunk cost.

5) If you're going to take forever anyways, at least try to involve your non-slow friends a bit. They'll feel less awkward waiting around.

This way, you'll not only end up spending less time/money, but you'll also have more clothes you really like and will wear around. Everyone wins!

Spring Break

Now that I'm on break, I have the luxury of sleeping in, eating lots of food, practicing piano daily, and worrying about my future. As distasteful as the last item is, I can't put off the future any longer. With still no summer internship in sight, I need to find something to do over the summer that won't seem too lame to prospective employers. I can't imagine they'll be too enthusiastic about a potential new hire without any internship experience in his fourth year.

Added to that insecurity is the fact that I still haven't decided what my stay at Northwestern will entail. All I know is that it will be some combination of the below, taking from 4-5 years depending on the path I take:

*BS Mechanical Engineering: This and the Design certificate are the only ones I've decided on for sure.

*BMus Piano Performance: What a tough one. I don't want to go through music history and stuff, but I've already fulfilled so many of the requirements. But, as they say in basic econ classes, sunk cost is sunk cost and shouldn't affect rational decision-making. I need to see if I can get a minor or something.

*Certificate in Engineering Design: They say design is what will set American engineers apart from our outsourced peers in Asia. Northwestern goes a bit further and says design will set apart its engineers from UIUC engineers, which come from a higher-ranked engineering program.

*Certificate in Managerial Analytics: the new Kellogg certificate program (if I can get in). It seems more and more important these days that engineers have some business acumen as well in order to survive and advance in the real world. DP professes to hate this type of engineer on principle, but I plan to be one he doesn't hate (a lofty goal indeed).

*MS Mechanical Engineering: Either through the 5-year BS/MS program at NU, or elsewhere if I can get in anywhere. My interests seem to lie in mechatronics and design, so I'll be looking at schools that are strong in those fields.

*MS Engineering Design and Innovation: It's such a new program (5 students so far) that I don't know what to think of it and how much the degree is worth. But it seems like a good combination of engineering, design, and business which fits my interests. Might even be able to finish in less than 5 years.

*Co-op: Only if I get an offer this quarter. If not, it's too late to do this anymore. Pro is that you get paid work experience and (if you perform well) usually an invitation to join full-time when you graduate. Con is that it takes an extra year and is usually paid less than industry average.

I'll need to do a lot more research before I decide in the end. For now, I shouldn't rule out anything, and I'll prepare with everything in mind. Which means continuing to search for internships, studying for the GRE (which, luckily, is like the SAT's older brother), building relationships with professors for recommendations, pulling up my GPA, continuing to build solid extracurricular experience and social skills. Sometimes I think it'd be a lot easier if I could just choose something and focus. It always pains me when JG says that you should do everything to the best of your ability in an attempt to make me practice more... because you could apply that same argument to everything I do and make a case for focusing more on that particular aspect of my life. It's picking and choosing that's the hardest part.

Now that I'm thoroughly stressed out, in other non-life-changing news, my parents gave me some traditional Chinese medicine which apparently can help me gain a couple centimeters to reach the magic 180. I feel like my epiphyseal plates have probably already disappeared by now, but hey, I wouldn't mind a couple centimeters. Also, I think I'll get my hair cut soon. Anyone know any good hairstyles for Asian men with thick, wavy, coarse hair? I'm kind of liking this but I also think that's just Collin Chou having a great smile.

No Rest for the Wicked

Whew! I just woke up a short while ago from my first time sleeping in my own bed for the last 5 days. Due to the inevitable barrage of end-of-quarter projects and "midterms", I spent nights sleeping in the Ford building and stopping by my apartment for only short periods of time to restock on ramen that I would cook and eat in Ford. The fun is by no means over, but I think I can rest a little this weekend. In the meantime, here's a picture of the Mechatronics project I've been working on (photo credit goes to Prof. Michael Peshkin)!



It's a 2-DOF user-controllable sphere for studying granular flow. Some big shots in McCormick are interested in using it for their research, which means we have to do a really good job making it robust and flexible. When I get done with my Steinway laptop concept project for Industrial Design Methods class, I'll put up some pictures too.

Now on another note: Greg Mankiw! The Harvard professor, former CEA member, and highly cited economist many of you may recognize from the cover of your introductory economics textbook has a blog where he brings up interesting little (economics-related) tidbits he finds. I highly recommend it. A few particularly interesting links from his recent posts: The Inequality Myth, Unintended Consequences, and Middle Class Tax Burden.

The Merits of DIY?

Clive Thompson has an interesting viewpoint on DIY projects and their implications for American innovation. While it reeks a little more of nostalgia than I'd like, he does bring up the dangerously ailing mechanical aptitude of the white-collar layperson and the practical knowledge that DIY projects tend to grow. Through my years here at Northwestern, I've tried to engage myself in hands-on student activities and personal projects in order to prevent myself from becoming a paper engineer who is utterly useless around the house. Let's hope this recent resurgence of DIY interest is the start of a new trend.

My next DIY project: mp3 player?