Participating in the Honors Community

The Honors euchre tournament was an event hosted by the Honors program for Honors students. The tournament was October 10th at 7:30 pm in the Thorpe lobby. Also, I arrived at 7 pm, which is when they were teaching everyone how to play the card game. The tournament itself was several rounds and was played with 2 different partners.

I chose this event because even though I’ve never played euchre, I do enjoy playing card games. So, I was excited to learn a new one and have the chance to play it with other Honors students. Also, this is a good way to interact with other Honors members in a more natural environment as opposed to the classroom. Since I already enjoy playing card games, I figure this will be an easier way for me to get to know them. This is a personal challenge for me because talking to other people makes me very nervous.

At the beginning of the event I was put into a group with two Honors students I already knew and one whom I did not. The rules of the game were pretty simple so I wasn’t too worried about learning how to play. However, another student joined our group, and she started playing with my hair and getting way too close to me, which made me very uncomfortable. Luckily, she eventually moved to another table which I was very happy about.

After that, I was able to enjoy playing euchre with the other students. Two of the people from my TA group attended the event, so it was interesting to interact with them outside of an academic environment. It was also nice to talk to some Honors students that I hadn’t met before and I had a lot of fun. The game ended up being a bit frustrating because a lot of people didn’t understand how to play and broke the rules a lot. It basically ruins the game if a lot of people aren’t following the rules. However, I was able to kind of let this go and just play the game, even if it was annoying.

I’m glad that I chose this PDP because I was able to get to know some other Honors students better and have fun with them. It was also nice to talk to them in a more casual environment. This game also personally challenged my patience because of how badly everyone was playing but I was able to let that go. I was also challenged by my social anxiety, but I was still able to have fun despite it. Overall, this event made me feel more included in the Honors community and more connected to my peers.

The Honors capstone workshop was an event dedicated to learning about the Honors capstone requirements and how to prepare for the capstone. It was presented by Dr. Harke and Violet Lane on October 24th from 5 to 6 pm in Powers hall.

I chose this event because it’s a good opportunity to learn more about what the Honors program entails and what I need to do to fulfill the requirements. I’m personally unsure about what I’m going to do for my capstone project and I’m very worried about it. This event will help me to figure out what I’m going to do and allow me to start planning for it. Additionally, I’ll be able to listen to another student’s experience with the Honors capstone, which will allow me to understand more about the community I’m a part of.

During the event, Dr. Harke went into a lot of detail about the capstone requirements, like paper work and deadlines. In addition, she also gave a lot of advice on how to start your project and how to find an advisor. She said a good way to connect to faculty is to look at the CMU website and see what research they've done and then go talk to them about it. I wasn’t aware that their research was so publicly accessible, so this was pretty interesting.

Violet also talked about her personal experience with the capstone project. She mentioned talking to several professors about their research until she found one that was doing something interesting that she could help with. It was interesting to hear her talk about it because she seemed to be genuinely enjoying working on it. So, I started thinking about the capstone as more of an opportunity than a chore.

After the presentation, I was able to talk to Dr. Harke about the specific requirements for engineering majors. She said that the engineering capstone can be counted for the Honors capstone, which was a big relief. The deadlines are also different because the engineering capstone is started in the first semester of senior year. Previously, I was pretty stressed out about having to do two really involved capstones at the same time. So, I was pretty glad to know that I wouldn’t have to do that.

Despite most of the requirements being different for me, I was still able to take away some useful information. It was interesting to see how another Honors student viewed the capstone. It’s useful to understand the experiences of my peers and know what they might be doing for their projects. Additionally, it was interesting to hear both Dr. Harke and Violet talk about how students can connect to faculty members. Even if I don’t have to seek out a faculty advisor for my capstone, it’s still useful to know how to build connections with professors.