Academics - Admissions Blog

5/21/2009

Change

Clinton One thing that I have learned about myself throughout my life: I'm a sucker for quotes. Therefore, I'm going to start this post with one. The following quotation comes from Henry David Thoreau's Walden: "Things do not change; we change."

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, we can move on to the point of this post. I've let my responsibilities for posting here slide this semester, because I spent the semester in Voronezh, Russia, and finding accessible internet proved more difficult than I had anticipated. However, now I'm back at West Point for summer school and will make up with several posts over the next couple weeks.

For this post I'll summarize my semester overall, focusing on the theme of change and how my experiences in Russia have changed me and my views towards West Point and the military in general.

My semester abroad was to Voronezh State University, a large public university 600 kilometers south of Moscow. I did not have much military instruction while there, excluding a class I attended once a week with a Russian Lieutenant Colonel and several Russian cadets (approximately their version of ROTC) about Russia's military and their military history. However, I learned a great deal about their military system and philosophy from talking with different Russians I met, including my landlady's husband. He spent two years as an officer in the Russian army in charge of a military construction unit (in fact, he was partly responsible for the construction of the current Ministry of Defense building in Moscow).

In Russia, military service is required for every male, before or after they complete university, with some exceptions. Military service generally is dreaded because of poor living conditions, constant abuse by superiors, and the threat of deployment to Chechnya and other places, where violence continues even to this day. This reality shocked me in contrast to the system that I had witnessed up to this point in America and our armed forces. When Russians learned that I was a volunteer, and that every American soldier is a volunteer, they were extremely surprised.

In general, I was not ready to return to America at the end of my time in Russia. I had made a lot of unforgettable friends, enjoyed a freedom that I will not have until I leave the army, and lived in a completely new and perhaps, for me, un-understandable culture. However, upon arrival in America, I realized that I viewed my homeland in a different light. No longer did I have to struggle to order food in a restaurant or focus extremely hard simply to understand what people were saying. I didn't have to pay to use public restrooms, as is the norm in Russia. I was viewing America in a different light, though it was the same as before I had left. Therefore, the trip to Russia was certainly worth it in my eyes, if for no other reason than the appreciation of my homeland. And I never would have had the chance if I had not gone to West Point.

While in Moscow we found this Cafe. (Translation: Uncle Sam's Cafe)

Posted at 10:06 AM by McNett, M. LTC DAD | Category: Academics | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

5/16/2009

Study Abroad

My time this semester has been an absolute dream.. I'm so grateful to the Portuguese Department for giving me the opportunity to travel like this. No joke.

I've met some amazing friends from around the world, seen amazing sights (Rome, Venice, Pisa, Florence, Paris, and Lisbon so far), and have MUCH better language skills. It's funny to think that I'd only had 2 semesters of Portuguese under my belt when I applied for the semester abroad. I'd barely learned how to string together a decent conversation when they'd sent out the notice. Glad I scraped up enough nerve to try.

My roommate and I (CDT Stamatiou) laugh at ourselves practically every day - whether it's a cultural lesson learned, a funny translation, an English/Portuguese hybrid "compliment", or a new song that the girls from Poland have taught us.

One of our best friends, Celia, is from Spain… we've got facebook pictures to last a lifetime, and a newfound understanding about true-honest to goodness- human universality. Her childhood stories, her experiences with men, her love for Homer Simpson/Beyonce, and her translated expressions are no different from what we'd expect from an American. I don't know why I expected her to be so exotic… lol. She's really taught me how similar everyone really is… And who'd have thought? A girl from Las Vegas, a girl from Delaware, and a girl from Spain would be three peas in a pod?

So interesting. I've met people from Lithuania, Poland, Japan, Germany, Belgium, Amsterdam, Spain, Brazil, Norway, Turkey, Italy, France, England, China, Korea, Timor Leste, Cape Verde, Russia, Kosovo, and Slovakia. Not sure if that's everyone, but it's a shot.

Not too much left to say… I'm still expecting it all to end up as some kind of trick dream or something.

Refreshed!

Posted at 12:27 PM by McNett, M. LTC DAD | Category: Academics | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (1)

3/24/2009

Back After Spring Break

Well,

I'm now 59 days away from becoming a sophomore, or what we call here at West Point: Yearlings. Yup, I have made it this far and don't have any intentions of quitting just yet. So…life? Yeah, life has been pretty good so far this semester. School is hard hitting and really kickin my butt from time to time; however, I'm quite fortunate that I have some fantastic teachers that help me out quite a bit on the side. I never had to study in high school. Stuff just came to me easily and I never had to work. I was quite fortunate in that regard. But, accordingly, that nice time has caught up with me here at West Point. I have to work twice as hard now as I did in high school because I didn't establish any good study habits for myself. Shame I know. But yeah, anywho, I'm surviving. Training as usual goes on. I have some good stuff this summer that I'm looking forward to. And like I said before, only 59 more days to go. All is well that ends well, and so on that note I leave you dear viewers with this thought…GO ARMY, BEAT NAVY.

–Casey R. '12

Posted at 10:04 PM by McNett, M. LTC DAD | Category: Academics | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/16/2009

Consolidated Posts from a Computer Science Major

Green thought for the day:

6:55 pm

I was just wondering how much energy is saved by replacing incandescent bulbs in your refrigerator with compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). Incandescent bulbs use about 5 times as much energy to start with, plus 90% of the energy used is given off as heat, which isn't very efficient when you put it in an appliance that you are trying to keep cold. It seems like it would be a smart switch : )

March 8th, 2009

Disruptive Tech in Boston

1:50 pm

Just got back from a couple of days in Boston and it was a really cool experience. I went there along with three other cadets and COL Shoop from the EECS department to look different research projects at MIT and discuss the possibility of these being disruptive technologies. The group of us has been given some funding by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to do some investigation and creative thinking on how different commercial technologies could potentially become disruptive technologies for the military.

There are a lot of different definitions out there on what makes a disruptive technology, but in this sense we are looking at how technology could be used or coupled with something else in an unexpected way that could have a significant impact on operations. An example of this is the way Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) have been coupled with cheap cell phone technology to become a significant danger to operations.

Anyway, Boston was a great time. We stayed on the 23rd floor of the Mariot, looking over the river and the city. MIT seems to have endless amounts of money to spend on research, and it is all cutting edge. I really liked talking to a guy that was researching thermophotovoltaic technology, which uses heat to produce light which produces electricity on a small scale. This has the potential to be an ultra-light, long lasting power source that can replace batteries in many applications. Right now, they have a system designed for NASA that uses radioisotopes to produce the heat, providing continuous power for thirty years.

I still have to decide what I am going to present to ONR. I'll post an update when I decide.

November 15th, 2008

Why I Chose a Computer Science Major

7:02 am

One of the things that makes a difference for me in being satisfied and dissatisfied with what is going on in my life is actually enjoying the tasks that make up my job. Right now my job is getting a college education, so it makes a big difference if I enjoy learning the things that I am taught in my classes. I decided to be a Computer Science major at West Point without really knowing anything about computer science, but luckily it turns out that I really like learning CS

. .

I came to West Point thinking that I would major in Psychology. I was very interested in social and developmental psychology. I also came here thinking that I really enjoyed writing. Unfortunately, I like to take time to ponder things when I write, and it turns out that I don't have that kind of time here. I have gotten decent grades on my papers here, but only at the cost of frustration and stress. Since majoring in Psychology would mean endless papers, I decided it was time to look for a different major.

Looking back at my grades from Plebe year (see video below), I noticed that my best grades were in math and IT, so they seemed like good candidates for a major. Math had always clicked with me, but I didn't know that much about computers. After much internal debate and a few heart to hearts with myself, I decided that the fact that I didn't know anything about computers was a good reason to major in Computer Science. I figured that if I get so frustrated with computers not doing what I think they should do, I should reduce my frustration by devoting the rest of my college time to learning about them.

This has turned out to be half true. It turns out that I love CS and I have learned a lot about computers, but I have not ceased to be frustrated with them. I continually go through a process of understanding my
past frustrations and remedying them, only to gain new expectations and thus be disappointed and frustrated once again. It's a fun time. I love CS though, because every project is just figuring out the best way to solve a problem or a puzzle, and at the end of the day I can click a button and actually see the results of my efforts.

Posted at 10:23 PM by McNett, M. LTC DAD | Category: Academics | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

1/30/2009

Some Thoughts

We typically call Thursday night "no homework Thursday".

I'm honestly not that sure why we call it that, maybe it's the hope of seriously not doing any homework, enjoying The Office, and going to bed before taps. But everyone I know, save the cows and firstie's wandering in right now (5 minutes before taps) from their various bars… yes we are like a normal college in that manner… is doing homework. That includes the Engineering majors, they don't go out much.

That being said: I've come to realize that cadets have big mouths - they have a tendency to talk, and talk themselves up - or give normal speech a dramatic or extra interesting edge. And we are taught this from the very beginning of Beast Barracks. We are molded to hold everyone's attention, be able to tell stories that people remember. Or at least that's the way I see it.

In high school I considered myself confident. Very confident, exceedingly confident. My teammates on my soccer team, which I captained, used to say "Annie Cale" as a type of affirmative statement. But apparently, once I came to Beast, I was nowhere near confident enough. I was worried, doubting, and didn't take action. That was the first thing I was counseled on. And so it got better. And I began to realize that to people walking in on a typical Cadet lunch table would be astounded by the glorified stories being told.
When you hear the words "THERE I WAS" you automatically turn your head to hear this ballad. An epic story to conquer the generations!
This feeling threads its way through everyday conversation.

A normal situation:
MA103, first semester, a student is holding a snack he bought at the bookstore, and a cadet says:
"He is cradling that snack!" (That student was actually me)
"Wow, he is definitely cradling that pastry snack" (an affirmative by another classmate)

In a normal situation people would have said something like "Why are you holding that snack like that?"
I guess what I am trying to get at is people here speak in a funnier manner. I almost missed the spice that cadets throw in their statements when I got home.

Or back to my main point, everyone is doing homework after claiming of "no homework Thursday."

Another slightly humorous story:

We had a huge snowfall yesterday. Huge. We woke up in the morning, and to our surprise, the ground was covered with 6 inches of snow. Of course this resulted in the wearing of the Army Combat Uniform (ACU's) (a uniform similar to pajamas), which raised the Corps' moral. So, after the pretty snow stopped, it turned into freezing rain, turning every surface into an ice sheet. This proved particularly difficult when your barracks is surrounded on all sides by ramps. Only two sets of barracks falls ill to this, and both of them make up my Battalion. So on the way down to the History Lecture after dinner I saw some of my classmates from the company who shares my building, D-1, on the ramp leading down to Thayer Hall. One was on the ground complaining about his head (he had slipped), and his buddy was asking if he was all right. They saw me approaching, and cautioned me to go to the side with the railing, but I saw one of the cadet's covers on the ground, so I went to help them out. But in that process I slipped and landed straight on my caboose. And due to the very very low coefficient of friction I continued to slide, right into the other cadet. We were obviously falling out really bad (falling out means, for plebes like us, talking, uncupping our hands, and what-not outside of our rooms/academic buildings), and I almost worried when I saw a cow (a junior) walking up the ramp. But he called out "Hey GUYS, are ya'll all right?" And while we were responding "Yes, SGT" he couldn't get any traction coming up. So we all linked arms, helped each other up, and went about our business.

It's things like that that I love about West Point. The helping hand.

Enough of my ramblings… Soon I think I will be posting beast packing lists for those of you who have chosen the path towards West Point, and if you do/have ANY questions whatsoever, please e-mail me and I'll do everything I can to make your experience as effective as possible. (anastasia.cale@usma.edu)

here is a picture of me and some of my close friends at a birthday party

here is a picture of the other two plebes at my lunch/dinner table. the theme for spirit dinner was "what I want to be when I grow up"… our table had deemed us all gypsies the meal before, so we added onto that sprit.

this was a picture from Christmas dinner last semester. My fellow plebe buddy and I did so well, one of our Cows wanted to take a picture with us.

these are a bunch of the plebes in my company after we rushed CGR and took it over as a spirit mission. The man sideways was our leader, a Cadet Corporal. He is now my team leader.

Take care!!

Posted at 9:45 PM by McNett, M. LTC DAD | Category: Academics | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

1/21/2009

Happy New Year!

NEW YEAR!
I've intended on blogging once again on this page, and I obviously haven't, but here I am!

Today we had a lab in CH102, and it was the same lab that we did during the Chemistry class during SLS (if you are considering West Point, I highly encourage attending West Point's SLS - Summer Leader's Seminar… I attribute my decision on attending West Point to SLS). One of my lab partners had a Cadet Candidate following him around, who happened to be a chemistry buff and helped us complete our lab, and I spent a good deal of time trying to explain West Point for him, and the advantages it has over other schools.

SO that is the premise of this entry: the differences in West Point and a "normal" college experience.

West Point's "students", the Corps of Cadets, is a cadet run group of people, at least when it comes to "cadet" life. Our top cadet in charge is the First Captain - Cadet Captain Amsler. He has all the responsibility in the world at this school. The way I have previously described the Corps is a brotherhood, more correctly a brotherhood/sisterhood, but it is its own society. It still strikes me as surreal that we still wear the same uniforms (on occasion) as our predecessors did 200 years go. The buildings are the same, and the traditions are the same. This place breathes history and being part of history is something that I always aspired to in high school. Sitting in history class we would read our text and ask each other "What does it take to be remembered forever? Through your family tree? By writing bestselling novels? Or to do something so big and important that students will study you for the rest of time?" Or you can go to West Point and become part of the long gray line. Stand beside the champions, the heroes. At least that is the way I see it. Share the same school as General MacArthur and General Eisenhower… that's enough for me.

But a difference that I hold much closer to my heart is that of student athletes. In a normal college you might have a class with one basketball player in it in a class of 400 students. Maybe you'll see that top football running back from a distance across the street. But at West Point, the athletes are your classmates, you know them, and they are your friends. That is why, although we may not Beat Navy every time, we hold so tightly to our Army team - they are our friends and we want to support them. It's more than wanting a National Title for your school - it's wanting your classmates, your people, to succeed. West Point has such a small cadet body that in every one of your 17-18 person classes, about half of the class is involved with some sort of sport or another.

At West Point every single Cadet has gone through the same experience. Everyone knows when the classes get tough, because the core classes are required for everyone to take. Likewise, the training schedule is molded around that - everyone knows the night the cows stay up all night to work on the "SOSH" paper, and how there is a costumed run to the turn in spot the day after. The experience of everyone having the same requirements really brings the corps together, because it isn't a hassle to find someone to help you with school work, because they have probably had that class the same day, or the year before.

And speaking of help, I've never met a more helpful group of people in my life. A common saying here is "cooperate and graduate," because without your classmates you are going nowhere fast.

Once again, if anyone has any questions I am only an e-mail away: anastasia.cale@usma.edu .

Posted at 9:47 PM by McNett, M. LTC DAD | Category: Academics | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

12/22/2008

Reflections

For my first post I decided to go with a look back at the past semester. It's amazing how we rolled straight out of Beast and into the academic year, with a three-day lull for prepping for classes. Now that we've finished a semester and I've made it back home once, I can stop and see how we hit the ground running early in the morning on June 30 and, aside from a few days for Thanksgiving, never really got a break from the life at West Point. Doesn't really give us a lot of time to think about where we are!

For me, academics were a good challenge, as I had been out of school for a year. I took the standard core math, chemistry, psychology, boxing, and health classes, while I was able to make it into the more advanced history and literature classes as well. Boxing was definitely unique; it's a class designed not so much to train plebes into expert boxers but instead to teach them warrior ethos by making them punch each other. I quickly learned how to take a hit to the face without panicking or losing my focus on what I was doing. I earned a concussion as well, but lesson learned, don't expose the unprotected parts of your head in a fight!

The last week of first semester was especially brutal with term-end exams (TEEs); another lesson learned there, take notes in every class and study ahead of time! While I did pretty well, it was at the expense of a lot of sleep and even a few meals, not to mention my higher mental functions by the time the last TEE was over! All joking aside, though, the TEEs were actually a good thing in my opinion because they forced me at least to review the entire semester's work and refreshed in my mind all that I had learned.

For the most part, though, academic life is easily manageable. It just takes motivation and focus when it comes time to do work; there's always temptation to hang out with friends, take naps, watch YouTube, etc.

Now that the second semester is in full-swing, I have found it already easier to manage my time, maybe because I see what I did wrong last semester with scheduling and priorities. Most of my time so far this semester has been taken up with schoolwork and skiing, leaving little time else except for sleep. (Of course, that's an event in which I excel!)

I also plan to devote time to this blog, so be on the lookout for more posts in the near future!

Posted at 12:15 AM by McNett, M. LTC DAD | Category: Academics | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

12/10/2008

Term End Exams (Finals)

As the semester draws near to an end, the TEEs draw even nearer. Just as in high school, our finals really dictate a large percentage of our final grade. We put a lot of effort into studying and preparing for them, as should you so that you can get in here and fight against the TEEs as well.

Posted at 10:02 PM by McNett, M. LTC DAD | Category: Academics | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)