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This episode of the Terby Voices podcast discusses the topic of balancing life as an engineering student at USC, while also being involved in campus clubs and leadership positions. The host, Salma Muhammad, interviews a classmate named Joanna, who shares her experiences in various clubs, including Engineers Without Borders. They discuss the benefits of joining this club, the projects they have worked on, and the application process. They also talk about the importance of balancing schoolwork and club involvement, and strategies for managing time effectively. Joanna also shares insights about the building science program at USC and the projects they are currently working on. They end the episode with advice for prospective students, emphasizing the importance of not overcommitting to clubs and finding a balance between engineering and other interests. Joanna also mentions her hobbies of reading and exploring different food places with her brother. All right. Is it recording for you? All right. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Terby Voices podcast. On this episode, we're going to be talking about how to balance life at USC as an engineering student who's also involved in campus clubs and leadership positions. My name is Salma Muhammad, and I'll be your host today. I'm a current junior at USC studying civil engineering with an emphasis in building science. And now I would like to introduce one of my classmates who will be joining us today. Hi, my name is Joanna. I am also a civil engineering student with an emphasis in building science, and I'm a junior. All right. Thank you for that. So this episode, we're going to be talking about balancing schoolwork, being in different campus clubs, and also having leadership positions in those because there's a lot of things to get involved in in Viterbi. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what sort of clubs you're involved in and any positions you have in those? I'm mainly involved in Engineers Without Borders. I am also part of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. And then this year, I joined the American Society of Civil Engineers. And those were the clubs I'm most involved in. And out there that I'm a student ambassador at the Advancement Center. Okay, awesome. So you mentioned Engineers Without Borders. Do you want to mention a little bit more about like why you wanted to join? How do you got involved in any of the stuff that you've done so far? Yes. So Engineers Without Borders is actually the only humanitarian club within Viterbi. And one of the reasons I wanted to join, I've always had a big passion for volunteering. It was something I did a lot during high school. And freshman year, one of like my mentors was actually part of it, and she introduced me to it. And so far, I've been part of it since freshman year. And we've done mostly just research in water filtration systems because the project team I'm part of is focusing on bringing purified water to a community in Bolivia. And we've also done, we started last year with designing but ended up not being able to fully design because we were missing a couple parameters. And this year, we are hoping to perform an assessment trip and hopefully finalize the design. That's awesome. What would you have to say for someone that's interested in joining Engineers Without Borders for our prospective students? I think it is a great club, especially if you're interested in learning from a lot of different engineering majors, like everyone within the Engineers Without Borders is like a different major. And there is a couple people who are also not from Viterbi. And I think it's like just a fun way to explore design. And also like, if you like giving back to the community, it's a great way to do that as well. In terms of like application, I think most of it is a lot of just showing a passion, that you have a passion for building and giving back. And other than that, I think it's very chill. It's not like super, like you need to have the skills down to a notch. You'll learn as you go. That's perfect. So getting more into the balance aspect, how would you say that you've been able to find balance with being in this club and managing schoolwork? You know, because everyone says that junior year is always like the most intense year in terms of course load. So how has that been going for you so far? I think I definitely felt like junior year, like the course was getting heavier at the beginning. I think one of the main things I try to emphasize is always making sure I have at least one day, usually for me, a Saturday, when I just don't do much. Because it really helps me like reset. And because I noticed that within the first week, I was doing work every single day and it was just so mentally draining. So I think it's just making sure you have your schedule planned and making sure you like also schedule times just for yourself is really important. Yeah, that's very true. I'm sure a lot of students also feel this way, but when you have so much to do, it almost feels unproductive when you are taking a break. And I feel like sometimes it is hard when you are on a break to fully relax because you're thinking about how much you have to do. I'm just curious, does that happen to you? And if so, like how do you manage that? How do you actually, you know, take a full break like that? I think, yes, it definitely happens to me, especially like during times because I have like deadlines coming up. I feel like I need to be working 24-7 to meet those deadlines. And I think one of the main things that helps me is like I actually write everything in a to-do list and I'll make sure to like set extra time. So if I know an assignment should take me an hour, I'll put an hour and 30 minutes. I overestimate how long it's going to take me. So that way that I'll have some, I don't feel bad if I take a little like 15-minute break because I did over schedule that assignment. That's awesome. Very strategic. And so far in this semester, would you say that overall like your strategy on staying balanced that you just mentioned, has it been working for you? And if parts of it haven't been, if you want to touch more on why or why as in like, you know, you wish you had certain time for different things, maybe like more hobbies or vice versa, if you wanted to talk a little bit about that. I think it's been working in terms of like having time to study. I think one thing I feel like recently changed was for some of my classes, I have like a three-hour break and I would come home and I would just like, I feel like I was improductive. So staying on campus and doing work was like a change I had to make and that actually really helped me feel like I was doing most of my work during the day so afterwards I only had two hours or one hour left to work and then I was, I had the rest of my night, I guess. But that was something that really helped me. Yeah, no, that's really great. And also in terms of, you know, like you mentioned that you're in certain clubs, how you keep balanced, why don't you tell us a little bit more about our building science program since I think USC is one of the few colleges that, you know, has something like building science. If you wanted to mention a little bit more about sort of what you're working on right now this semester and, you know, a little bit about the program, what you like about it, how you feel about it. Yeah, so building science is an emphasis you can take within civil engineering and it's a interdisciplinary program where you get to take classes in engineering and also architecture. And in terms of like my studio this year, our first project was building a pavilion and it was just like any sort of learning like community or like little open area that you wanted to develop. It was just to get you like started on designing and just putting your ideas onto like the page. And then currently we're working on a school which is a bigger project and I think for me it's really helpful. Like I like being in the program because I get like a break from just doing math, science, and also like this is more of like designing and it like gives me sort of a balance between both of them. I think if like if someone is interested in doing that, I think it's like a really great program. And it's also like you get to really meet your classmates because it's such a small program. In my class there's only nine of us. I feel like most of us really like know each other and like it creates a little community within the program. Well that's great. That was a great you know description, a little summary for any listeners that are interested in that. And I guess you know to sort of start wrapping it up, what would be your advice to a prospective student? You know because there's always people that get very excited and coming freshmen about all that there is to do. It's almost so difficult to you know pick certain clubs, certain involvements, and then you know experience like overwhelm all of a sudden when you sign up for like 10 clubs. You're taking the full credit load. What would you recommend for you incoming students? I think in terms of clubs, definitely don't over commit. I would say use the involvement fairs usually like within the first month of school and just or do some research also. Like just look up clubs on like the USD website. Kind of narrow down your list. And then I would say usually I joined two clubs my freshman year and those were the ones I try to commit the most to. And I think that's been really helpful not over committing myself to it because I know it can be really stressful having like this whole course load and then oh I also have to attend this meeting this day. So I think definitely doing that. And also making sure that you don't only like if you're interested in something outside of engineering like I don't know it could be a knitting club or something like that. Make sure you look for those clubs that are really going to help you like get out of your bubble and also meet like different people outside of just your major. Yeah that's awesome advice. And I guess a little bit more into it. You mentioned that on Saturdays like the weekend you like to kind of do less. Kind of take that time for yourself. Just like a questions for fun. What sort of things do you like to do when you're not in class and you're not doing studio work or you're not at one of your clubs? Yeah so one of the things I really enjoy doing is reading. So I like going to bookstores around LA. I'm from the LA area because I'm not from LA. And I also like recently started doing this like food tasting thing with my brother where we just like he will we'll both look up places in like our respective colleges or nearby cities and we would just like go try them out and then tell each other if it's good or not. It's just like a fun way to ask like explore the area and also just like relax a little. That sounds really fun. Do you have any recommendations or places around the USC area for some of our listeners that haven't been to campus yet? I think if you're trying to like to really explore like different types of food, downtown is a great area like for tacos. It's a very popular area but Sonata Town is actually really good. And the Grand Central Market if you just want to try like a lot of different food, that's a great place to start because they have a bunch of little like places that you can just like dessert, ice cream, and food. So I think those are great places you would want to hit up. That's awesome. I guess just to sort of you know our sort of closing question, Amy, anything else that you would like to comment on balance? You know what does balance mean to you? Do you feel like you've achieved the perfect balance that you want? And if not, why and what would that perfect balance look like for you as a student? I think balancing like academics with just like your own personal life outside of school is hard and it also changes every semester based on your schedule. So I think being open to like change is a really big thing that helps. And just making sure you have some sort of organization whether that's like school calendars, a planner, it actually really helps. And saying reminders of things I think has really helped me. Like to-do lists, like having things to scratch out like helps me like just be like on track of what I need to do. Yeah I think I totally agree with that. I think being able to be flexible is super important when you're trying to balance out and organize everything. But that was really great. That was really good for all of our listeners that want to hear more about you know how what does it look like once you do join those clubs and how do you manage it. But thank you so much for joining me. I hope everyone listening was able to get a good idea about what balancing different clubs is like, doing your schoolwork, and how to make your personal life into that as well as a very busy student. So thank you.