More Grad School, Oh Joy…Oh Rapture…

You might think that I would have said enough about grad school at this point, but there has been yet another confounding variable. Mah ho’aka, Feech also wants to go to grad school in approximately the same time frame that I do. For any who don’t know, she’s not an engineering major (she’s takin’ college algebra this fall…huzzah!) she’s majoring in speech-language pathology. Now, if we were married, it would make it somewhat more difficult to go to two different schools that are 2500 miles across the country.

Yes, I said 2500 miles…the two that we were thinking of were Georgia Tech for me and the University of Washington for her. That would leave us with a couple of options. We could get our master’s degrees at different times. (Probably hers first, since a bachelor’s in speech path is kind useless; whereas a bachelor’s in civil engineering can put food on the table.) Another option would be to choose another school that has good civil engineering and speech pathology programs. The last option that I can think of is for me to just get my master’s from the University of Washington…though I’d really rather not.

I think I’ve narrowed it down to about three or four actual options for timing and choices of schools.

Option A: Feech and I move to Seattle, Washington where she pursues a master’s degree in speech pathology. Afterward, we move to Hotlanta, Georgia, where I pursue a master’s degree in civil engineering.

Option B: We move immediately to West Lafayette, Indiana, where we pursue both of our degrees at the same time at Purdue University. Note: Purdue is ranked #2 in the nation in speech-language pathology and #7 in the nation in civil engineering grad programs according to US News and World Report. Similar cities/schools: Austin TX, U of Texas-SP #9, CE #4; Champagne IL, U of Illinois-SP #9, CE #1(tie)

Option C: We move to some awful town full of old people in Iowa where Feech pursues a degree in speech pathology from the University of Iowa and I establish state residency in order to pursue a degree in civil engineering at Iowa State University. Note: The University of Iowa in ranked #1 in the nation in speech-language pathology grad programs and ISU is ranked #41in engineering grad programs according to US News and World Report. Similar situations: Michigan: Western Michigan-SP #38; Michigan-Ann Arbor CE #9

Option D: I just suck it up, move to Washington and get my master’s from the university of Washington. It wouldn’t really be that bad, but it’s just not that impressive of a place to have a degree from.
I really don’t know what I’m going to do at this point, but I’m kind of leaning towards options A or B in all honesty. I’m thinking that Purdue would be the best school for option B since Feech never wants to step foot in Texas, I’m a big Texas A&M fan, neither of us like Illinois, and the University of Illinois doesn’t teach the sub-discipline of civil engineering that I want to go into. Though I’m still a big fan of Georgia Tech and could handle living in Washington. I guess only time will tell.

*Sigh of Relief*

So, today, at about 1pm, or so, my roommate, Joshua knocks on the door to my room.  After I invite him in, he hands my a package with “amazon.com” emblazoned across the side.  I knew exactly what it was.  It was my own personal copy of “Differential Equations for Dummies.”  I was pretty excited as it was to get the book, so that I could study for my ODE class in the fall.

But then, something magical happened.  As I was flipping through the first couple of pages, I realized that I pretty much knew what the author was talking about.  It was nice that, at least the majority of the principles were based heavily on calculus as opposed to linear algebra.  That having been said, power series and Laplace transforms are going to be interesting…but I think it’ll work out pretty well for me.

The moral of the story: I’m a nerd…and nerds just shouldn’t worry too much about academics. 

In Other News…

So, I think that I’m just going to recap all the insane crap that happened yesterday.  And I’m going to go in more or less chronological order, so it might not make much sense, but bear with me.

So, yesterday, I woke up at about 7am barely able to stay awake, since my dad had called me at 4am.  Well, after the intense fatigue wore off, I went to my surveying class that started at 8.  Well, about two minutes after it started, this half-Asian dude walked in and sat right in front of me.  The way that I figure it, there’s no way that that dude had bathed in the last week…maybe month.  I mean, about ten seconds after he sat down, the most disgusting BO smell that my nose has ever witnessed entered into it.  I mean, this surpassed HBO, and even OBO, this was up to the level of NHSBO (nose hair singeing body odor.)  I mean seriously, after sitting in that chair for about forty minutes, I had an awful headache and was about to pass out.  Luckily we had a break after that, and I was able to move over a couple of seats, to where the rankness wasn’t so paralyzing.

Well, after that, I went to the CAEDM lab and did my stats homework for the whole two hours I had off.  I started at about 9:55 and finished at about 11:55, it was intense.

Then I went to surveying lab and it was hardcore; we had to design a vertical curve for a hypothetical road that doesn’t, and probably will never, exist.  It was way too much work to do in a three hour lab, so we just did some number-fudging and called it good.

Stats lab was interesting.  Apparently, someone “lost” my scantron for the second test, though they’re pretty optimistic that they’ll get it from the testing center sometime soon.  I don’t figure that that should be too big of a problem.

I then went home, did my geology lab homework and geology lecture quiz for this morning, wasted some of my life on facebook, and talked with Feech until I passed out.  So yeah, it was a pretty intense day…but it’s cool, I survived. 

Memories of Fall 2007

So, mah ho’ aka Feech and I were talking about our not-so-fond memories of Fall semester 2007, and I thought that I’d list a couple of them here.  The first one that I thought of is from the first day of American Heritage lab.  So, my TA was a British/Canadian Chemical Engineering Major who was teaching American Heritage.  You would think that he would have picked up on that irony at some point, but apparently not.  Well, we were all having our introductions, and James Cooper the TA went first, explaining his British-Canadian-ChemE thing.  It went around the room and eventually came to me.  I thought that I would be sarcastic, as usual, and say, “I think it’s preposterous that a limey would be teaching American Heritage.” And thus was a facebook quote born.  So, it was awkward for a couple of minutes and a couple of people asked, “What does that mean?” ’cause, you know, it’s a GE class.  Well, then we went throughout the rest of the semester, and when my lab grade was turned in, I noticed that it was a little low.  Then, about two weeks after that I realized, “Hey, maybe it’s not such a good idea to say, ‘I think it’s preposterous that a limey would be teaching American Heritage,’ on the first day of class.”  Yeah, I guess it was just one of those semesters.

The second memory that I would like to mention is that of Jeff Humpherys.  Oh my gosh, I hated that man and that class with a passion.  Jeff Humpherys was my linear algebra professor during Fall Semester 2007.  It was his first time teaching the class, and it showed…not to mention that he was a complete @$$hole…that really didn’t help either.  I think that will delineate what an average day was like in that class.  So, he would show up at least five minutes late everyday because, apparently, the time resets when a computer is rebooted.  He had a mac, so he “never” needed to reboot.  After showing up at least five minutes late every day, he would go over announcements and administrative bullfunky for about 10-15 minutes on average.  It was closer to the whole period during exam times.  At this point, he would take one or two questions on the homework, which would invariably involve one of the insane proofs that he assigned.  Then after mocking the person who asked, he would do the proof verbatim with no explanation and call it good.  This would take about 5-10 minutes.  Afterward, he would makes jokes and/or throw his marker behind his back for about five minutes.  The “lecture” would take about 10-15 minutes and involve 2-3 proofs, verbatim with little to no explanation.  For the remaining time, whatever it happened to be that day, he would talk, ironically, about globalization and the importance of knowing linear algebra.  The worst part of the whole thing wasn’t that he was incompetent, it was just that he didn’t care.  He would talk about going up for tenure soon, and how, at other schools that he taught at, he would fail about a third of the class, just for shiggles.  And anyone who’s met people could tell that he was just using us for his own personal gain.  I ended up getting a C in the class.  Though I do consider myself fortunate, considering that I learned absolutely nothing.  I guess everyone else in class was just as lost as I was.

Dang that felt good…I should do that more often.

I said to myself, “Self, good day.”

So, today when I woke up at…whatever time it was, I said to myself, “You know, I think it’s going to be a good day.”  Pretty much the first thing that I did was check my email, ’cause, you know, I’m OCD like that.  Upon clicking on my inbox link, I found that I had an email from amazon.com saying that my copy of Differential Equations for Dummies had been shipped.  When I looked at my surveying homework, I thought it was going to take some obscene amount of time and be wicked-nasty-hard.  When I actually started doing it, it really wasn’t that hard and only took about forty or so minutes.  Then, when I went to my Geology class, I found out that the midterm that I took last week was going to be curved by 7%; bringing me from an 85 to a 92.  Then I went to stats and it was just as boring and monotonous as ever, but that’s not all that important.  To essentially conclude the day, I went and took my second stats midterm.  I felt really good about it and got a 94 on the multiple choice.  I’m also pretty much convinced that I got a 100 on the free response, though that’s not really worth that much.  So, I’ll probably end up with between 95-96%, or so.

So, in all, I’d call this a really awesome day, at least as far as academics are concerned.  I guess that just goes to show what a little optimism and a little blessing can do for you.

‘Twas the best of times…’twas the worst of times

So, today, I went into for surveying class at 8am, just like every other Tuesday and Thursday at 8am, except today I was expecting to get my one and only midterm in that class back.  Well, Dr. Reese said that he had the test all graded and ready to hand back, but with only one glitch.  He had to give them back to the college so that they could “insure” that we are meeting the “competency standards” set for by some Hitler-esque accreditations board.  And he doesn’t know when he’ll be getting them back.  And you got to say to yourself, “Well, that’s stupid,” ’cause it is.  But, on the bright side, I didn’t have any surveying lab today, because they’re on Monday and Tuesday, and Monday was Memorial Day, so there weren’t any on Tuesday either.

Well, then, after I exited my surveying class, I decided that I’d go home and check the balance in my checking account, since it’s a weekday between 10am and 3pm, they’d probably be open.  Well, they were, and after being on hold for about 10 minutes, they told me that the balance in my checking account was $17.99.  And I said, “Alright, sounds good,” while I was thinking, “Oh, freakin’ mother-o-crap, I am flat-butt freakin’ broke!”  So then, I called up my dad, and told him of my situation, that I had enough cash to survive, and pay my bills, but putting cash in an envelope and sending it to the cockroach SOBs at credit card companies wasn’t a good idea.  Then he told me, “Well boy, you could just get a money order.”  And the light clicked on and I said to myself, “Oh, brilliant!  I have been saved!”  So, yeah, at least that crisis has been mostly averted.

Now, on to the trouble of Differential Equations/Geology midterms…

Oh, the humanity of it all…

So, this evening, I was looking at some stuff for Math 334, aka Ordinary Differential Equations, aka Hell.  And I must admit that I felt a little sick.  I mean literally, I felt nauseous after about five minutes of exploring the basic premises of ordinary differential equations.  You know, I really don’t want to pull off a repeat of Math 343, aka “Elementary” Linear Algebra, aka “Ah! Kill me now and make the pain stop,” aka “Screw you Humpherys!”  I ended up not learning a dang thing in that class yet managed to escape with a C.  Apparently everyone else was just as clueless as I was.  Well, apparently,  ordinary differential equations involves many of the same concepts and principles as linear algebra, though it does seem to be more concrete.

I find that the solution to this problem (hopefully) will come in the form of a book.  In Google search, I typed in “differential equations for dummies,” not really expecting much to come of it.  I mean, seriously, “differential equations for dummies” is most definitely an oxymoron; if you’ve even made it to diffEQ, you are quite the antithesis of a dummy.  But then, lo and behold, Wiley has “Differential Equations for Dummies” coming out on June 3rd of this year.  If you failed to recognize the date on this post, that’s in literally eight days.  That one’s definitely going to make it into my prayers, tonight…and I will consider that blessing counted.  So I promptly went to Amazon.com and pre-ordered the book for about $18.  It’s definitely worth the money.

Though that made me think of another hitch in this whole “life plan” that I’ve been working on.  The last time I checked the balance on my checking account, it was around $420.  And that would be just grand if I could remember when I checked that balance.  Because, upon looking through my duplicate checks, I’ve found that I paid about $300 at the end of April, for my last credit card payments.  And I know that you’re saying, “Repent ye, repent ye, and quit spending money like it’s going out of style!”  The problem is that I already have.  Over the last month I’ve paid for everything in cash, and have pinched every penny until Abe Lincoln screamed for mercy.  Yet, I don’t know if I have enough digital money to pay for the crap that I’ve already charged.  I definitely have enough cash to pay for everything (thanks mom ), but you know, sending the cockroach SOBs at credit card companies cash in an envelope just isn’t a good idea.

I’m pretty sure that this shouldn’t be that big of a problem.  I can just not pay off the balances in their entirety and wait until I can deposit some cash into my checking account.  In fact, that’s probably the plan at this point, if I don’t actually have enough digital money.  But, you know, it’s still kind of disconcerting.

Though, on the bright side, all this makes my Geology midterm/ lab quiz this week not seem so bad…:)

I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech and a Heckuvan Engineer

So, recently, I’ve been thinking about where I want to go to grad school and exactly what I want to study. I’m positive that I’m going to go into civil engineering, that I’m going to go into industry for at least a couple of years before I return to grad school, and that I’m going to go into either structural or transportation.

At this point, I’m thinking that I want to go to either the Georgia Institute of Technology or Texas A&M University. This is of greater concern now, since I would want to move to either Georgia or Texas in order to establish state residency to get in-state tuition. I’ve found that both Georgia Tech and Texas A&M have exceptional transportation and structural engineering programs and that I could probably get into either without any problem, so that’s not that big of a deal.

The thing that’s been straining (ironically) my thoughts is which specialization I should go into, whether structural or transportation engineering. At this point, I have much more experience with structural engineering, having taken both statics and mechanics of materials. I really enjoyed those classes, and think that I could do well being a structural engineer. Though, I also look at course descriptions and other information for transportation engineering and it sounds like something that I would find super-interesting and would really enjoy doing as a career. I was thinking that I could go into transportation materials, though I think that I only find that interesting for the structural portion, so I might as well go into structures at that point.

I think that I’m just going to have take some more classes in structural and…some classes in transportation. I’m probably going to take Intro to Transportation from Dr. Saito. People say that he’s not the best professor that they’ve ever had…(sarcastically said, of course.) So, if I still fell the need to go into transportation after taking that class, I’m thinking that I will.