On the night of Thursday, July 22nd, students of UCSC COSMOS and SIP (Science Internship Program) alike enjoyed a relaxing paint night hosted by Sierra Schneider-Williams, the assistant director of SIP. She began by explaining the history of Paint Night: people would go to bars, order some soda and crackers, then paint the same picture on a canvas. They would follow a leader’s instructions and craft a masterpiece in the duration of a night.
But COSMOS and SIP Paint Night was not just any old paint night; students learned they would have an opportunity to create something uniquely theirs. To give us inspiration, Ms. Schneider-Williams showed us a painting of a house on the hills and read us the poem “Santiago” by David Whyte.
Painting a vivid image in the listeners’ minds of a person wandering through life, the poem’s central message is that it is not the destination, but the journey that matters. The journey is portrayed as the road in the image.
Students armed with acrylics, a 5x7 canvas, and their imaginations set out to paint. SIP students used watercolors and experimented working on canvas with a new medium, and surprisingly enough, it turned out to be great. Ms. Schneider-Williams led the students by recreating the image, drawing green hills and blue skies. She helped the students paint by sharing tips on how to express themselves on the canvas: just paint what comes to mind. Some students wished to express their creativity in a different way and painted their own images.
Regardless of what the participants painted, everyone had a pleasantly relaxing and enjoyable night! In a world where it may seem that everyone has their entire life planned out, paint night was a wonderful reminder that sometimes it is best to focus on the journey instead of the destination. - Sarina Mayya, Emily Dai
UCSC Tour
It is well known that COSMOS offers its students a variety of recreational activities alongside a STEM education that is unparalleled in its quality. In normal years, these activities occur face-to-face and each student becomes familiar with the campus as they make repeated treks from cafeterias to classrooms to dorms. However, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, COSMOS students have not received such a close view of UCSC’s campus on a day-to-day basis. It was therefore quite fitting that one of the recreational activities for COSMOS in 2021 was a virtual campus tour led by UCSC students and COSMOS RAs Sean Melone and Fariha Lateef.
The tour started with Sean and Fariha entering the UCSC campus through a gate with a grassy, recreational field beside it. One student dared Fariha and Sean to go on the exercise equipment as they passed, but both RAs declined.
After Fariha stopped to pet a dog on the way there, one of the first sites on campus that Sean and Fariha showed us was the UCSC bookstore. Close to the bookstore was UCSC’s cafeteria, along with various colleges. (According to these UCSC students, the food on campus is “actually not bad” with a variety of vegan, vegetarian, and gluten free options.)
Overall, UCSC’s campus is spacious and relatively undeveloped in order to maintain the natural beauty of Santa Cruz. There are plenty of places for students to hike, bike, and enjoy nature. According to our RAs, some students even bring their gaming consoles outside because the environment is so enjoyable!
Fariha and Sean answered questions continuously throughout the tour, explaining that UCSC has various fraternities and sororities. The COSMOS RAs encouraged students to carve their own path when it comes to social life at UCSC, should a COSMOS alumni attend. COSMOS students were relieved to hear that living with other people in dorms is not as drastically different from living at home as it may seem, according to Sean and Fariha. As long as everyone does their best to respect one another, things should run relatively smoothly!
We were able to experience the diversity of the wildlife at UCSC (even if through a screen) as Sean and Fariha showed us deer, fish ponds, and even UCSC’s mascot—the banana slug!
At the end of the night, our tour ended at a UCSC sculpture where Sean and Fariha showed us a great view of a sunset and wished us all a good night. Although hundreds of miles away, we were still able to have some of that on-campus experience! - Jordan Lee
Tea Time
The title says “Tea Time.” So then why was nobody actually drinking tea at this Tuesday’s afternoon event? Well, the answer is that it is just too hot for tea during California summers.
Instead, Tea Time meant meeting with UCSC COSMOS Faculty Director, Prof. Shaowei Chen. “Tea Time” was more like “Tea Talk,” and it was a nice opportunity to personally interact with Prof. Chen. In a pleasant conversation with Prof. Chen, the students shared many humorous moments during Tea Time, including their feelings about how busy they were during this program.
This week, I had an opportunity to tell Prof. Chen a lot about myself and what it was like to learn semiconductors and device engineering in Cluster 10. He assured me that our professors were good and that I am doing fine, telling me that my cluster is extremely challenging. Overall, this just shows how much Prof. Chen could reassure us students.
Even with the limitations of distance learning, Prof. Shaowei Chen really is nice and supportive of us COSMOS students. I really thank him for giving us 30 minutes to interact with him and address any concerns or problems that we may have had, and next week’s final Tea Time is certainly not one to miss! - Henry Qi
COSMOS Cuisine
The clanging of plates. The filling of water glasses. The sound of utensils scraping porcelain.
Hundreds of miles apart, we do not hear those noises.
Instead, we chow down on our own individual meals. Sitting alone at our dinner tables, we reminisce about what could have been. Every lunch is clouded by the panging desire to be at UCSC with our friends (I don’t use that word lightly).
Food brings teenagers together. After all, we do need extra calories to feed our growing bodies. Unfortunately, I also stopped growing two years ago.But my brain is still developing. Therefore, I still need extra calories.
The last year has made food-related activities strange. It’s not high on my bucket list to watch my friends slurp noodles on Zoom. And yes, okay, I do admit to watching one of my friends make a three-course breakfast during a 9 am class. But other than that, there are no more casual lunchtime conversations with food filling the awkward silence.
Despite this, I still have my priorities straight — Priority #1: food (Biological instinct right there). And so, even though I was unable to observe everyone’s eating habits in the dining hall, my peers willingly offered their data to my scientific study.
I started off with times of the day. Which part of our COSMOS schedule is prime time for snacking? 46.2% of students replied with Discovery Lectures. With all our cameras off, there’s no need to worry about someone ogling at you chewing a slice of toast.
Most students stated that they ate breakfast during Discovery Lectures. Here are some stand-out breakfasts:
“Rice.”
“I go all out. Usually something with nut butter. Breakfast cookies, pancakes, English muffins with nut butter and smashed raspberries, cottage cheese, etc.”
“Ice cream.”
“Yogurt or cereal. Depends on how hard I want to chew that morning.”
“Breakfast consists of me scrambling to finish a nice bowl of Coco puffs cereal while my teacher talks about the atomic structure of crystals.”
“Bold of you to assume I have enough time to eat breakfast.”
Surprisingly, only three students admitted to drinking coffee to start their day. 11.5% and 19.2% of students settled on tea and boba respectively. Shockingly, 53.8% of students claimed to be drinking H20.
As we moved on to lunch, students confessed to much more.
Cathleen Chow from (Cluster 9) stated that she was too lazy to make lunch and instead opted for eating ice cream. Audrey Zeng (Cluster 12) has really been living out the college experience, consuming instant ramen for lunch.
Meanwhile, only 42.3% of students said they made a proper lunch ( aka not ice cream nor instant ramen). And one student claimed to not know what lunch was.
Here were some standout lunches:
“Rice.”
“Something microwaved - the first thing that I see in the fridge or freezer is what I eat.”
“Cereal?”
“Salsa and chips.”
“Nachos.”
“Food.”
“Salad or hummus with veggies and cheese. Occasionally protein with cheese and veggies if I have leftover protein in the fridge.”
“After the refreshing sound of my meeting ending, I usually spend about 10-30 minutes going on my phone and catching up with people or finishing up some homework for one of my classes. Thereafter, I take a long, meaty nap for the rest of the time until 1:30 strikes again.”
“It looks like 78.1% nitrogen and 20.9% oxygen.” “Udon / dino nuggets / leftovers from last night + bread.”
Most students stated that lunch took between 20 and 30 minutes. However, one outlier did point out that their lunch was 75 minutes long, as class was also 75 minutes long.
Several students also provided must-try drink orders:
“Strawberry, mango fruit tea with boba. 50% sugar. 30% ice.”
“Classic milk tea with boba or passionfruit green tea with bob. Half sugar and less ice.”
“Taro milk tea with sago.”
“Rose milk tea with boba.”
“White grape oolong milk tea with honey boba. Iced vanilla or caramel latte with extra cream. Pina colada smoothie with star mango jelly. Strawberry green tea with grass jelly and aloe vera. French pudding milk tea with egg pudding and coffee jelly. Taro lover w/ taro chunks and 100% sugar.”
“Boba - winter melon milk tea with boba and coconut lychee jelly, less ice.”
“Starbucks - double chocolate chip frappuccino, no whip.”
“Caramel ribbon frappuccino from Starbucks or strawberry wild from Jamba Juice.”
“Iced chai latte / caramel frappe.”
Let us know if you try any of these! Additionally, I wanted to know if 2021 COSMOS students were willing to try Dr. Chen’s infamous rice which he cooked for a previous year of COSMOS students. (See Dr. Chen’s interview from week two!) The results came in as 84.6% yes! Maybe Dr. Chen will cook us some rice and mail it!
This year’s batch of students also seem to be lacking in cooking skills. 15.4% said they started fires while trying to cook. And, on a scale of one to ten, 69% of students rated themselves a five or less.
Finally, for anyone aspiring to become a #COSMOScouple, Macrocosm’s Editor-In-Chief, Jade Wang (Cluster 5), has provided a word of caution.
On a first date, do not order “Korean fried chicken! It sounds unlikely, but it's so messy. Eating with your hands on a first date is always a no bueno. Imagine having to see your date gnaw on chicken wings and cover their face and hands with grease...no. Also, if you get soy garlic fried chicken then you'll both have awful garlic breath. Neither of you would be kissing anytime soon. ON TOP OF THAT, if you get tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes) or some other spicy dish as a side, and can't take spicy food (I guess this goes more for those wannabe macho men because they're more likely to be all: "oH I'm manly, I can take spicy food!" when they actually can't) then you'll be tearing up with snot everywhere. That's just- yikes. THIS WAS NOT WRITTEN FROM EXPERIENCE. I SWEAR."
This year, the COSMOS cuisine is more diverse than ever. And, on a positive note, there’s no waiting in line! [Quotes have been edited for clarity]