Remember

My name is Sam Rho.
I am about to graduate from the University of Southern California with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering. And I've never been more afraid in my life.
I've picked up a minor in Business Administration along the way and for whatever reason, I felt that God was calling me to pick up medicine in the summer of 2016. After attending a GMMA conference, I figured that I would no longer feel any passion for medicine, but I instead felt more challenged to beat out these fools in premed. I despised that they felt that they were better than any other student and felt that they needed to be humbled. One step at a time.
And so I picked up the freshman premed classes. LIKE A FREAKIN' FOOL. Because I picked them up when I was about to be the busiest engineer in my entire career. I sacrificed sleep for engineering in Fall 2016. Never before had I had to do that, but the projects in EE were merciless and required me to sacrifice sleep for an acceptable grade.
By the grace of God, my grades weren't entirely unacceptable and I ended up only losing 0.04 points on my GPA. In the context of premed, this would have been killer, but I was honestly only taking these classes to show that even an engineer could do what they could do. Only the best of the best were above me, basically.
But then GMMA interrupted me again. Medical missions opened my eyes to how much the world was in need of missionaries and how easy it was to serve as a missionary when you studied medicine.

The issue: I had already determined that God had called me to be a sender. It wouldn't make sense for God to already change that calling before I'd had a chance to send. Would it?

Resolution: There still isn't one. I'm now stuck on this path between engineering and medicine and I have no idea which path I have to go on or if I have to go down some middle path that I have to make on my own. Meanwhile, I keep forgetting to pray, like an idiot, and I'm now trying to look to people in this world to give me guidance that I honestly know will only come from God. Because what fool tries to be a doctor with as low of a GPA as me? Or as little experience as me?
There's already been an electrical engineer who pursued medicine and he was the valedictorian for USC a few years back. I don't know what I'm trying to prove anymore. I get this feeling that I'm just dumb.

HERE I AM. SEND ME. If I'm called to be a goer, by golly I'll go. If I'm called to be a sender, I'll send. IF I'M NOT CALLED TO BE A DOCTOR, PLEASE... JUST TELL ME. I KEEP KILLING MYSELF TO TRY AND DO WELL IN THESE CLASSES WITHOUT THE MOTIVATION THAT THE OTHER PREMEDS HAVE.

-Sam Rho

What I Miss About Engineering

I’ve been taking biology and chemistry for about a year now, thanks to this newfound inspiration to go into medicine after initially pursuing electrical engineering. On top of that, I finished my electrical engineering classes last semester, so this semester has been a new experience entirely. I feel like a freshman majoring in business and premed. As I take these classes, I’ve been having to seriously reconsider if I am called to medicine as the study methods for the prerequisites for medical school stray far from the study methods of engineering. I’ve found that I’m still wired to study for engineering, whether I feel a calling or not and here’s what I’ve found and what I miss about engineering.

Freshman year, I entered USC with the mindset of seeing if hardware, like circuits and wireless signals, was right for me. I was seriously considering computer science, but I wanted to try out one of the hardest majors in engineering first. I was not disappointed as the classes proved difficult, but I enjoyed myself so much in them that I had to come back for more. I was learning about digital logic and hardware algorithms, all of which quickly made sense to me, despite being foreign to me the class before. I could quickly grasp the concepts and the practice done in class and through the homework allowed me to apply the same concepts to other, more difficult problems on tests and projects. It all made sense and the textbook served as a supplement to the material taught in class, helping to better understand topics that were a bit fuzzy from class and helping to figure out new topics.

As I began biology and chemistry, the study methods changed. The teaching methods changed. Everything became denser. Literally, the only way to do well was the study the material outside of class on your own. The class length was the same, perhaps even longer than engineering classes, and yet the material was not covered as thoroughly as engineering. It didn’t make sense. Of course, the material being covered was quite different, one being about how to apply concepts to improve systems and the other being about how organisms and systems work, but that still didn’t explain it. The difference in study methods clearly suggests that there is some central difference in the way the material is learned. In biology, the professor would go through as much material as he or she could in the lecture period and the student would be responsible for memorizing ALL of the information, only to be asked about a few of the concepts. The same applied for much of chemistry.

The difference between these two majors is immense. Engineering focuses on a few topics, which are dense, and then has the student apply them to as many concepts as possible. Natural sciences focus more on studying as many concepts as possible and making sure that students are able to regurgitate the information back to the professor in tests. Illogical, in my opinion, but perhaps its necessary since there needs to be some sort of buffer to keep everyone from trying to become a doctor and making the field similar to engineering, finance, and all the normal undergrad fields. Then again, perhaps I'm just complaining because I'm having trouble and I feel like I shouldn't be having trouble.

-Sam Rho

Oh, Happy Day!

Today is Easter and I have to say, I have really come to appreciate it more since leaving the comfort of my own home. Back there, people knew I was Christian, but everything was low-key because of the whole separation of Church and State thing at school and the fact I didn't really show it much even when I hung around people outside of school. Here, I've managed to become a new Sam! One who no longer fears saying that everything he does is for God's glory and one who wants to do more to thank God for being so merciful as to save a Sam who has done so much against Him.

This same God was the one who created the world in 7 days simply by telling things to exist. My God gave humans the breath of life so that they could think and be rational, rather than just being controlled by instincts, and because of this, humans were placed above other animals, whether on land, in the air, or in the sea. This same God had to punish humans for disobeying his command about eating the fruit of knowledge of good and evil by throwing them out of the Garden of Eden and having them have much harder lives than if they had just obeyed God. At the same time, God was merciful and on kicking Adam and Eve out of the Garden, gave them clothes so that they may be protected on the Earth as they began to labor to find food and survive. God continued to watch over humans as well, and, as generations passed, he found that at times, they really needed His help, so he would use people, who we now know as prophets, to lead humans out of their trouble. Despite his anger at the corrupt world in the time of Noah, he still allowed humanity to survive through Noah's descendants after the Flood that swept the Earth. As time went on, though, God knew that animal sacrifices were not enough to save the souls of the entire world, so He did something unimaginable. 

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. - John 3:16

This Son is the one we know by the name of Jesus. This man lived a perfect life, never sinning and only helping others and was subsequently accused of blasphemy for calling himself the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus was then brought before the Jews and they cried out to crucify him, despite even Pilate realizing that Jesus had done nothing wrong, the people wanted him crucified. And so Jesus was forced to carry the cross, with the help of another man, to the proper position where he was then nailed to it. Everyone could see the shame of Jesus as he hung on that cross next to two other sinners. Jesus cried out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" There was distress on the mind of Jesus as he hung on the cross, which is understandable, considering he was dying on the cross having done nothing wrong, committed no sins, in fact, he was dying for everyone around who was spitting at him and calling him names. Still, he knew that it was all part of God's plan and right before dying, he said, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." 3 days passed after Jesus had died and in that time, he had been buried behind a heavy stone tomb. On that third day, though, the stone was rolled away and nothing remained except the clothes of Jesus and some angels who told the women who happened to have looked for Jesus that day that he had been resurrected. This is why we have Christianity, at least in my opinion, because we have a Savior who has arisen from the grave and never died again. Jesus died and our sins went with him, but we have new hope in that Jesus rose again from the dead, conquering it. We remember the death, as Christians, on Good Friday, and celebrate the resurrection on the following Sunday on Easter!

What's even greater is the fact that all you have to do is a short, three step process to become a Christian:
1. Admit that you're a sinner, just like me or anyone around you, there just are things that we tend to naturally do that are against God's will, like lying, stealing, being jealous, etc...
2. Believe that Jesus is God's Son and that he died for your sins as he was crucified in front of all the people and that he came back to life, resurrected and conquering death, allowing us to have hope in our lives.
3. Confess that Jesus is your Savior and repent of all sins that you have committed thus far.
Of course, more sins will, unfortunately, come and when they do, all you really can do is repent again and pray for strength to stop from doing what is wrong in the eyes of God. I'm no better than anyone who reads this, in fact, I'm probably worse, but I try to do everything so that it will bring glory to God because I am so thankful that he loved me enough to sacrifice his Son for me.

To the friends who may or may not read this at some point in the future just because it might possibly show up on the Blogger Reading List, I apologize for not portraying someone who seems different to a point where you would have questioned and wondered about my life. I apologize for not having really talked much about God or really much at all about Christianity. I hope that at some point I'll be able to gain enough wisdom and vocabulary to reach your guys' level of speaking skills so that I can try to explain what the Gospel really is about, though it's possible you guys may still lack interest after that. I just feel like trying to share with people, but because I really lack interpersonal skills, I'm pretty sure it's going to be rather challenging and awkward to reach this level of talking with you guys, but there is a joy that has been given to me in this good news and I want to tell others about it, rather than being selfish and keeping it to myself.

-Sam Rho

The Worst Feeling

I've been sick for the past 2-3 days and it's been the worst experience I've had so far. I think one of the greatest causes was just not taking a shower before bed and staying up too late too often. Along with that, I would like to think that I have a weaker body overall, what with only having part of a heart and everything, so I think I'm more susceptible to illness. This has been an insane sickness, though. It all started on Saturday, when I helped out with the Korean Culture Night here at my school. It's the 3rd annual show, so it hasn't been around an incredibly long time, so I figured I could help out. Unfortunately, the practice went from 2 PM to 1 AM and there was like one break for dinner. That was it. I was extremely tired and knew that I had work to do, so I tried to work in between scenes and during the break, but didn't manage to get too much done. That day, I was so incredibly tired that I got back to the suite, barely managed to do any work, and just went straight to sleep. On the following day, I went to church and found that a friend who had been to training for summer missions all day on Saturday was also sick. I thought nothing of it, I felt bad for her, as we tend to do as humans, and I went on my way. I didn't receive any messages about practice on Sunday, so I just went back to the suite after church, did some work, and went to sleep. Monday was when it hit me. Like a freakin' wrecking ball, I had an insane fever, I could barely concentrate, it was just terrible. I couldn't even swallow properly because it hurt so much. As I came to the realization that I was sick, I tried to sleep it off, but it was only in between classes. I couldn't go to rehearsal on Monday, which was probably for the best because it seems like it went on until 4 AM, at which point I would have been even more sick. Today, Tuesday the 15th, there was rehearsal from 1 PM to 10 PM, but I was only able to go from 3 to 4:30 because I felt so sick. I know that I'm easily replaceable, which is a good thing, especially for roles where I would be an extra, but I really wanted to contribute more. I really should have thought out the consequences of my actions before trying to help out with KCN.

The flyer for the Korean Culture Night

I probably should have allocated my time better, I was barely able to finish an assignment for Writing 140 today because I could barely concentrate. Even now, I'm pretty sure that paper wasn't my best work and I need to improve it for this final paper and portfolio. Tomorrow is the performance and I need to rest up to be properly rested, and hopefully healthy enough to be able to still do the show tomorrow...

Sickness really sucks, I'm definitely going to try to plan out what I involve myself in better so as not to become sick like this again. I'm having fevers all the time now, despite taking Advil, and it still hurts to swallow. I can barely talk without my throat hurting. I had to do Physics homework today, but I wasn't able to complete it without first discussing it with a friend because I had trouble concentrating...

Hoping that your day is better as you read this

-Sam Rho

The lack of extra tiredness

This Friday, the 24th of January 2014, there is a huge hackathon (programming competition where individuals and teams go and try to create the best program they can from scratch) going on known as HackTech. This competition has people coming in from all over the country to try and create the best program in the time constraint of 36 hours. The competition begins at 11 PM on Friday, continues all the way through Saturday, and ends at 11 AM on Sunday. Sleep is optional during this period and those who stay up are usually considered to have better chances at succeeding. Prizes are usually given out to the teams or individuals with the best programs and can range from credit to websites like Amazon to straight up cash prizes. Along with that, there's usually some sort of sticker that participants can put on their laptops to signify that they participated in a certain competition and food is always provided for those who need it. I think I already described my last two experiences with hackathons and how I enjoy them for a period of time while I'm at the events, but don't look forward to them or want to look back at them, but this one is different. 36 hours straight is longer than any other competition I've done and I have no intention of dying of fatigue after a programming competition. That would just be embarrassing, I feel. I enjoy programming to an extent, and I don't feel like I'm terrible at it, although when I don't have any ideas what I am doing with a program, it becomes a bit of a different story, I at least have a basic understanding of programming concepts. These competitions are a too intense for me, though. I can't handle the lack of sleep and I don't know how other people can. Perhaps if they're out of college or out of school, then I can understand because sometimes it's possible to just put down a vacation and rest after the hackathon, but having to go to class after staying up so long programming sounds ridiculous to me. That being said, I was initially planning to go to this event with my roommate and some other people from school, but my roommate just got sick yesterday... YES!

I apologize to my roommate, but I really didn't want to go to this hackathon and his sickness gave me an excuse not to go. Of course, I'm a bit sick as well, but it's not really enough to warrant missing a hackathon. I really should consider just taking programming classes or looking at videos online, but I'm just lazy, short on time, and forgetful. For realz, though, I might just try and learn something like C# this summer... or try to properly learn C++ and Java... Depends on the amount of free time I have.

I'm having serious worries about my grades this semester... I know that none but the business class count towards any of the information that I'll try and put on a resume, but it still would be nice to be able to look at an acceptable GPA by the end of the year. I MUST WRITE QUICKLY, REVISE WELL AND PLENTY, AND GET DUH A IN MY GE AND WRITING CLASSES! With luck, writing about ethnicity and film may not be too bad.

-Sam Rho

Down with the Sickness

Wassup Blogger...

It's been a while...

I've been here at USC only about a week and already I'm sick again... I feel like this rapid change of climate is hard for me to adapt to, which could be rather unfortunate in the future. Not being able to adapt to new environments is rather unfortunate, but I'll manage. Other than this cold (runny, raw nose, phlegm-filled throat, and slight headaches and all) I've been enjoying being back in LA. Honestly, as much as I enjoyed quality time with family and friends, I really enjoy being in LA with many things to do as well as the knowledge that there are always classes with much homework to do. I'm not sure if that last part is really that great, but it's a nice motivator for me to get up and be productive.

This semester is 5 classes, which is just as many as last semester, but these are a bit more challenging. None of these classes are towards my major GPA, which is nice, I guess, I don't have to worry too much, but I still feel like I should at least try to keep these grades up. I know that it's going to be nearly impossible to keep my grades at all A's, but I really want to try. These classes are all incredibly time-consuming, which is annoying, but it's the schedule that I've created for myself: Writing 140 (This class is literally comprised of 5 essays that are all graded for a comprehensive test of writing skills. In theory, it's supposed to help increase writing skills, but I'm pretty sure people who can't write well rarely ever get better. I've never been good at writing essays, so this is going to really hurt my GPA. This was a required class, of course, every student is forced to take this and there's no way I would take a class like this recreationally), Exploring Ethnicity through Film (We watch movies and write papers... This is going to be very bad because watching movies take up time and if I don't get everything down about the movie in one go, it takes double the time... so much note-taking! A required class which will, in theory, help me also learn about accepting diversity... or something like that), Differential Equations (Normally, I wouldn't really be too worried about any math class, but I managed to get a bad professor again. It's rather unfortunate, but I'll survive and try to learn things either from the book or from another, better professor. Apparently, this material might be important for my major, so I may need to actually utilize office hours, the TA, and the Math Center at USC), Physics: Mechanics and Thermodynamics (Thanks to Burton, I might have a chance to do alright in this class, but according to the professor, even those students who have taken AP Physics before have a harder time later in the semester. Once again, I might have to utilize SI sessions and office hours to do well), and an Economics class (Which may or may not be incredibly time consuming, depending on how much information I need to retain from reading the Wall Street Journal every day...). Anyway, despite the annoyance of not taking any classes truly pertaining to my major this year, I'm pretty excited to take on another semester. I hope that I don't get too horribly owned by all these classes.

As I look at my schedule, the only classes I really feel are necessary are Economics, Differential Equations, and maybe physics. I watched a "Draw My Life" video today and the author's comments about the general education system in college really resonated with me...

Stuff about college goes down around 12:10

Maybe I'm just lazy and want to be an idiot who isn't well rounded. Perhaps my goal in life has been to not know anything about European history or writing about film. Or maybe I'm just really excited to actually go deeper into my major and actually learn about Electrical Engineering to actually see if I'm truly interested in the major. Whatever it is, I feel like GE courses at USC or any college, for that matter, are just annoying... But I'm just a freshman. The fact that I started a sentence with a conjunction and that I used so many ellipses might explain why they still have these classes. Whatever, I guess I'll just deal with it like other college students and accept whatever GPA I get after everything.

-Sam Rho

Victory comes at a Price

I guess you could say that last Sunday I had a sort of Pyrrhic victory: There was a hackathon that was going on that weekend, so I spent most of my Saturday learning how to code an Android app in Java and by the time Sunday came around, I had been working for nearly 16 hours on coding that app. Of course, I didn't expect to win and, in fact, I was hoping to lose because that would mean that I wouldn't have to code anymore. After spending so long with that program, I just couldn't stand the sight of it anymore. Fortunately... and yet unfortunately... we did actually manage to win the first tier of the hackathon, getting in the top 5 of the 13 teams competing at USC. As a reward, we were given $100 as a team for all working on the program all weekend, but we were told to continue developing the app for a final presentation on the following Thursday, which just passed by a few days ago.

I can't believe that the most I've stayed awake for this program, though. I was initially going to just help out a little bit while we got an actual person who knew how to code in Android/Java to do the work, but since we were not able to find people who could actually code, another freshman studying Computer Science with an emphasis on games and I had to do all of it instead. We were working with 2 sophomores and a junior, only one of whom was a computer science major and the junior was planning to minor in it. I think we had the least coding experience out of anyone in the top 5, which was impressive, but also very discouraging because we knew there was no way that we would be able to come up with, and execute the coding for, a better app than any other team. Anyway, I spent my Monday and my Wednesday, starting at midnight so I guess it would actually be Tuesday and Thursday, coding each screen for the application and trying to make sure that there would actually be a good-looking app to show off to the judges on Thursday evening. I was up until 4 on Tuesday and 6 on Thursday, so I was hoping that all the work would pay off. Of course, though, it did not and we did not receive any reward on Thursday because one of the other teams managed to develop a better app than we did. Speaking of which, our app was supposed to be a polling app for all the students at USC, where you would download it and answer a few questions and eventually be able to level up and gain points, which could be redeemed for prizes. It seems like a ridiculous concept because people would likely not want to fill out the poll, but it was one of the suggestions made by the people who hosted the event for an app.

I have to say, as much as I was hoping to learn to program before this event, I don't think this was the kind of learning experience I was hoping for... This is just too much in one sitting and although I learned the material, for the most part, I don't like the stress that was associated with the 2 day time limit. Coding in java, at least as far as I can remember, was not as challenging as this event when I was helping to develop that social media application with Dylan, but I guess that failed... Perhaps this is the best and worst way for me to learn a programming language.

-Sam Rho