The senior wisdom keeps on rolling over here at Bwog. Up next we bring you some thoughts from SEAS student Matthew Sheridan.

Name, School, Major, Hometown: Matthew Sheridan, SEAS, Mechanical Engineering, San Antonio, TX

Claim to fame: I get messages from random people asking how to get into roofs and tunnels. I was president of the Formula SAE team last year and helped set up the makerspace when it started, so people seek me out to figure out how to build things. I was also one of those really annoying people on the Class of 2016 facebook group during pre-frosh summer and campaigned pretty hard for VP Comm at the end of my freshman year.

Where are you going? I am doing a summer internship at “Related Companies” to do energy efficiency analysis of their buildings. I’ll be in NYC, but I gotta find a job for fall. My parents didn’t like that I turned down a full-time offer for this, but I’ve seen lots of seniors do internships after graduation, and I’ve always let my personal interest in the work be the deciding factor.

What are 3 things you learned at Columbia and would like to share with the Class of 2020?

1. Try not to base your opinion of someone off of a first impression, or what you hear people say about someone for that matter. There have been quite a few times where I thought someone was weird and didn’t want to spend time with them, only for them to become an irreplaceable friend as fate had me spend more time with the person. Likewise, everyone shit talks and will enforce the opinions of their friends. I’ve been on both sides of both of these situations; I think everyone would have more friends and be happier if they gave people a chance.

2. Don’t ever feel like a damn thing at this school “depends” on you. I know, it feels nice to our ego that a club might go under without your contribution, or that you might be someone’s best friend, but you really have to evaluate your happiness selfishly. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen someone afraid to quit a club even though the work is making them miserable, or stay in a toxic friendship because they are afraid to hurt someone’s feelings.

3. Before you demonize how something operates at Columbia, try meeting the admin/staff that is in charge of it. More often than not, our staff are extremely caring people that want to do the best for their students within their power, and simply raising concerns in the proper channels is enough to see change enacted. While I can’t take full credit for any of these things, let me share some examples. When Dean Boyce came to Columbia, I told her that students need a place where we can work on projects, and now we have the makerspace. I told my department that the scheduling of a class didn’t make sense, so they changed it around. Even in clubs you’ll start to slowly see change. Once I spent over an hour arguing to eco-reps that we needed to cover all meals for Give and Go Green, then Class Confessions raised that same sentiment.

When you get to Columbia, the structure of the bureaucracy is very confusing. For example, facilities, housing, dining, etc are all nested under the Senior Executive Vice President (that dude who just got appointed), but Residential Life, NSOP, advising, etc are under Student Affairs. Also, the undergraduate schools tend to be very different in their academics because GS/CC are under the VP of Arts and Sciences, where the SEAS dean is directly under the provost. You’ll see the corresponding funding sources (e.g. alumni associations) be equally separate. This stuff can be learned and will help you!

Anyway, understand that staff can’t always cater to use because the structure of the University doesn’t it allow, it’s not them trying to make our lives hard. You don’t have to join Student Council, but I recommend going to a few meetings, and then accompanying them to meetings with admins so you can meet the people who run our school in person.

“Back in my day…” The door to SIPA’s roof was unlocked, and so was the window to the roof of Uris. Mudd’s 14th floor elevator button was activated on at least one of the elevators (now you have to use the damn stairwell). All the CUErs lived together in Mcbain. Dodge had no wifi. Senior Design expo was not a thing.

Justify your existence in 30 words or fewer. I stay true to my beliefs and call people out on their shit. People are scared to do this, but I think it is especially important in engineering.

What was your favorite class at Columbia? My all-time favorite class is “Computer Aided Design” by Gerard Ateshian (not to be mixed up with “Computer Graphics and Design”, which teaches the basics of CAD modeling). I generally hate going to class (especially engineering classes), but this man’s lectures were so clear and complete that I would actually wake up just so I could hear him speak. This class is basically all the things a MechE should learn, and it’s a shame that it is not offered in Fall 2016. It’s about how to use all the advanced features of a CAD program to solve engineering problems and really emphasizes understanding the theoretical basis of the computer’s calculations so you know if the results actually make sense. It had a perfect combination of teaching theory and applying it to practical problems. For example, we had to assemble a dump truck in our computer program, apply a motor to make it lift a heavy load, and then compare the forces in each of the link’s pins depending on the motor being a constant velocity or constant acceleration. Really powerful stuff that would take dozens of hours to solve by hand.

My second most useful (not necessarily 2nd fav because I can’t decide) is “Environmental Data Analysis and Modeling” by Upmanu Lall. It’s basically an applied statistics class. No one has a damn clue what’s going on the entire time, but the content is extremely useful for anyone who wants to use stats to solve actual problems. It serves as a really good replacement for a Machine Learning class because it exposes you to a lot of the same tools, but explores the assumptions you need for every statistical method (and consequently, why even most smart people are using them incorrectly). For my final project, I am using its methods to model racecar tire data, which I think is pretty cool.

Would you rather give up oral sex or cheese? I’ve certainly never had a true Tex-Mex enchilada and thought “Gee, I desire something MORE from food”.

One thing to do before graduating: If you have to pull an all-nighter for studying, go camp out at one of the computers in the 18th-floor computer lab in East Campus. At some point you’ll realize it’s getting light out, and you’ll turn around to see the spectacular colors of sunrise on a great view of the NYC skyline and central park.

Any regrets? I was always the one to prioritize club work over classes (cheers to the FSAE team because 0 ~ time requirement of any other club / time required for FSAE), and my grades are lower than they should be because of it. I never thought I would want to go to grad school until this year (I switched gears from working on cars to focusing on the environmental problems I always wanted to tackle). I’m pretty good at finding cool work to do and selling myself based on the problems I have solved, but I really wish I pushed myself harder in classes and kept more doors open with regards to academia. Anyway, I really don’t imagine younger Matt doing it any other way, and I learned a bunch in everything I have gotten myself involved with!

Roof-dweller in his natural habitat via Matthew Sheridan