Clara Selbrede

IM I - 6 - 12AP
9/11/2017
Journal 9/11

Objectives (for the upcoming week):

● Catch up on Summer Work
● Make contact with mentor regarding start date
● Finish any administrative work
● Start learning more Matlab
● Go on site

Journal:

As this is my first journal entry, I cannot report on whether or not I accomplished any

goals from last week, so I will just focus on what I have done throughout last week and what I

hope to accomplish this week. This past week has been the first week of school and so I have

been attending meetings during my IM period. I’ve also been working on the summer work that I

missed because I joined the program late, and I’ve been setting myself up to do well for the rest

of the year by creating a folder on my personal google drive to organize my annotations, journal

entries, and other miscellaneous things. This weekend, I contacted Sam Trossman and Mason

Rogers. Sam was able to give me some general advice about working at APL, but he did not

work with Dr. Gorman. I’m still waiting on a response from Mason. Also this weekend, I tried

backmapping my work to get it done more efficiently, but I forgot to prioritize my homework so

I was unable to complete everything for IM I wanted to do. I will be sure to prioritize next week

but I will continue to play around with methods of backmapping to figure out what works best

for me.
 Clara Selbrede
IM I - 6 - 12AP
10/17/2017
Journal 10/17

Objectives (for the upcoming week):

● Get caught up
● Use Organization system
● Start Project proposal before the weekend
● Begin project
● Get all of the paperwork due 10/27 started early
● Stock up hours

Journal:

Today is Tuesday so this is already two days late (granted by an extension though). I

really do not want to get into a habit of late work, regardless of whether or not it is granted by

exception, so my goal is to start assignments before the weekend. I discussed possible projects

with my mentor today (one of the reasons I asked to move the due date of this journal back) and I

am very excited to get started. However, the project possibilities I was given are very computer

science based, so I am nervous that I won’t be able to understand anything.

Project Ideas:

- Work with G-Forge modeling software: I attended my mentor’s presentation on this

software and it essentially models probability of two submarines/ ships finding each other

after one detects the other. I’m not quite sure what I’d do with it though.

- Optimize Bilateral Interpolation: This MATLAB function is called a lot in the G-Forge

modeling software, but it seems to be unnecessarily slow, so Dr. Gorman wants me to

look at it and see if I can get it to go faster.

- Traffic Pattern on Sheppard Lane: This was something I was thinking about modeling.

I’d like to look the difference a turning lane would make for the Sheppard/ 108

intersection.
 Clara Selbrede
IM I - 6 - 12AP
11/20/2017
Journal 11/20

Objectives (for the upcoming two weeks):

● Organize my binder
● Enter dates into calendar
● Plan out future annotations
● Ask Dr. Gorman about what format to cite in
● Make progress on project
● 3D print or make a sticker
● Meet up with Nithya and learn how to get places within APL
● Try to find an interesting presentation to attend
● Stock up hours
● Scan in important papers (if I have time so probably not)

Journal:

I’m honestly not sure when this was due, but I’m going to turn it in and hope for the best.

I created objectives for the next two weeks considering that this upcoming week is comprised

solely of two half days of school. Since I’ve last written a journal entry, I’ve started my project

and gotten to sort of the end of stage one, but I still have two big things I need to accomplish. In

terms of my research paper, I have no idea what I’m doing… Anyway, the main purpose of this

journal is to discuss my three public speaking goals for my marketing presentations. I’ve decided

to focus mainly on two, but have an extra one to focus on if I feel like I’m successful with my

other two.

1. Speak Slower- Usually I’m pretty good about this, but I think with an under-rehearsed

presentation I got nervous and panicked.

2. Create ways to keep interest mid-presentation- My audience liked the intro but by

midway through they were bored.

3. Cut down on Outline Dependance- I’d like to be able to have a one page outline, and

have to look down at it less.

 Clara Selbrede
IM I - 6 - 12AP
12/08/2017
Journal 12/08

Objectives (for the upcoming week):

● Organize my binder
● Enter dates into calendar*
● Make up old annotations
● Cull through annotations to find related/ non-related
● Ask Dr. Gorman about what format to cite in
● Make progress on project
● 3D print or make a sticker
● Meet up with Nithya and learn how to get places within APL*
● Try to find an interesting presentation to attend
● Get out of hours debt/ Stock up hours*
● Scan in important papers (if I have time so probably not)

Journal:

I’m writing this ahead of time, because I’m majorly procrastinating many other things at

the moment. Let’s just say the past few weeks have been a mess and the end is very far off, so

while I will try to get these goals done, it is very likely that yet again many of them will be

pushed back to the next journal entry. I have done something different this week where I have

starred a couple goals that I will try to focus on so I have a more attainable goal. As a sort of

reflection from last week, I got all of my presentations in addition to my thesis board done on

time, which is a pretty big accomplishment for me. I should definitely look to make more

progress on my project though because I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished as much as I should

have in this amount of time. Looking ahead (barely), I definitely need to start thinking about my

full-sentence outline because that looks like it will be hard to do last minute and as much as I

know I will end up doing some portion of it right before it is due, I’d like to minimize how

extensive that portion is.

 Clara Selbrede
IM I - 6 - 12AP
12/21/2017
Journal 12/21

Objectives (for the upcoming week):

● Organize my binder
● Make up old annotations/ Find more related
● Ask Dr. Gorman about what format to cite in
● Make progress on project
● Meet up with Nithya and learn how to get places within APL
● Get out of hours debt/ Stock up hours
● Fill Out Chart Outline!
● Write Abstract

Journal:

So because I’m totally on top of things, I had no idea that this was a thing that was due

until today (about a week after it was due). I’m going to write it as if I was writing it for its

actual due date.

Because I spent the whole break working on college apps, I now really need to work on

this chart outline that was due a long while back. In addition, I need to actually find sources that

support my topic and start annotating them considering I haven’t done annotations in a long

while. Basically my progress in this class is a mess and I just need to start doing things. It’s

really hard though because my topic doesn’t really fit any of the structures considering it’s not

really useful. I really want to change it but I’m not sure I’ll have time (Spoiler Alert: I will

change it). My primary goal at the moment is to get out of hours debt, so I think that I will need

to go on site a lot after break in order to reach that goal.

Also, I’d like to write a research abstract to submit to Caltech as supplemental material

because I was deferred, but that is definitely not my highest priority considering I really need to

do something in order to give them something.

 Clara Selbrede
IM I - 6 - 12AP
01/12/2018
Journal 01/12

Objectives (for the upcoming week):

● Organize my binder
● Complete end of Quarter things
● Complete old annotations with relevant sources
● Cull through annotations to find related to new topic (if any)
● Ask Dr. Gorman about what format to cite in
● Make progress on new project/ finish out old project
● 3D print or make a sticker
● Meet up with Nithya and learn how to get places within APL
● Try to find an interesting presentation to attend
● Get out of hours debt/ Stock up hours
● Get my grade up to an A (maybe a B is more realistic)

Journal:

I’m writing this at the same time as I am writing the previous journal because my grade is

currently a 70.74% and it really can’t take any more half credit on things (which I know is my

own fault really). So this past week I changed my research paper topic to something I actually

want to do (Hooray!) but now I actually have to do that project, which will be fun but I need to

find the time for it. I’ve been getting a lot of hours in, but I figured out I needed to go in

everyday last week and this week, but we’ve had snow days when I haven’t been allowed to go

on site, so I hope I can still make my hour count. I’ve contacted my mentor about an alignment

conference so hopefully I can get all of the end of quarter paperwork in on time. Right now my

priority on site is to find sources for my research paper (because through APL I can access many

more articles for free) and to annotate those articles so I can start filling in some of those zeros

on Canvas.
 Clara Selbrede
IM I - 6 - 12AP
03/01/2018
Journal 03/01

Objectives (for the upcoming week):

● Organize my binder
● Finish out old project
● 3D print or make a sticker
● Meet up with Nithya and learn how to get places within APL
● Take “This is My Classroom” pictures with Irene (because I totally didn’t procrastinate
doing those…)
● Try to find an interesting presentation to attend
● Maintain a regular schedule so I don’t go into hours debt
● Don’t fall behind… again…
● Work out all data collection logistics

Journal:

While I’m extremely happy that the research paper is over, I am still really really

concerned about this class. I really don’t want to worry about the logistics of data collection but

if I put it off too long then I won’t have enough time for the project. The problem is when I’m

scared of doing something I ignore it and that would really be unfortunate in this case (so please

berate me if I start procrastinating). I also am worried that I won’t be able to actually do the

mathematical model portion, but I am pretty excited to try. I just need to get started and feel the

pressure of a deadline (although what I want is very different from what I need). Also, I’m

worried about the amount of stuff I still have to add to my paper which will tack on time even

once I finish my model. Anna liked my paper but I’m not entirely convinced that it won’t come

back to me with a large “E” on it. On a more positive note, I really enjoyed making the

Valentines though. It was a nice break. Did teachers like my cookies?