My day at SSP was quite unexpected.
I woke up at 8:18 AM today, which was later than usual.. Hazed by the cold atmosphere in my room, I checked my phone, only to find out that I woke up 30 minutes later than usual. I jumped out of bed and woke up my roommate, Shreyas, who relies on me to be his alarm as he sleeps through his own(sometimes). With both of us waking up later than usual, I rushed out of the dorm and headed to the lobby, grabbing whatever granola bars were sitting there. On the way to lecture, I was still thinking about why my alarm had not gone off this morning. I kept checking my phone, knowing that my alarm was set at the right time, but I came to realize that my alarm was only set to weekdays.
Today’s lecture about Quantum Mechanics was very intriguing to say the least. Not having prior knowledge in quantum mechanics, there were physics concepts that tied in with it, so not all of the material was too complicated. Having to look at so many problems involving dot and cross products was hard to keep track of, especially when I keep having to write and erase everything that keeps changing on the board.
After the lecture ended, I was unexpectedly informed that there wasn’t an afternoon lecture because it’s Saturday, which I felt like I knew, but nevertheless, I was still zoned out. Despite feeling zoned out, I headed over to my dorm again, just to get my mind off the confusion that I was having about today. As I entered my dorm, my roommate was there unexpectedly, laying in his bed, fast asleep. Realizing how much time I have, I decided to take a quick nap as well, only to be disturbed by the chants and laughter of the genomics group playing soccer out in the courtyard. Regardless, I got some sleep which was fine by me.
After a long and painful nap, I headed over to Domenici to start on our official orbit determination code along with a problem set that’s due that night. I sat in the workroom for almost two hours, just to get stuck on a wrong negative value that had nothing to do with the math that I was typing in, but rather the parentheses that I was using for those formulas. As for the physics problem set, I was frustrated over the fact that I did the first problem twice, only to convert measurements in the wrong order.
Around 5:15PM, I headed over to dinner in which the weather changed unexpectedly. There was a lot of wind and the clouds were forming a spiral-like shape, which was very surprising considering the fact that it was very hot beforehand. Nevertheless, I was able to make it to the dining hall without getting caught in the wind. Dinner was the usual. Our table group talked about how far we’ve gotten in our coding problem sets and the amount of time we have left at SSP. We were all sharing our experiences at SSP and the wonderful memories each of us has made throughout the program. Regardless of how difficult a task, it was truly a great day to experience something different everyday throughout SSP.



My name is Mohammad, a rising senior from Virginia. I’m interested in Computer Programming and love studying areas in STEM including Calculus, Physics, and Statistics. Outside of those subjects, I play Football, Wrestling, and Track and Field.