Crazy Life

I feel like I’m stuck in between school and a career. Working 40+ hour weeks in an office with meetings, projects, teams, budgets, ect. feels good and is incredibly inspiring to look forward to. The summer internship is now extended through the school year and I can’t wait to see long term where this may take me and to see how the projects progress.

Beyond work, this past week I met with a few professors to determine my Senior Design Project. It should turn out to be an interdisciplinary project group that I am very excited for. Out of college and in the real world that is how it works so why not get the experience in academia too.

Not only that, when I finish my bachelors in the Spring i will also graduate with 12 possibly 18 credits towards a masters in Mechanical Engineering. What a deal, In 5 years of college I’ll have a bachelors and could be half way to a masters degree. It would be hard to turn down a masters at that kind of price, I may just end up in Kalamazoo for a few more years then expected.

Weekend Project

Hillel this year will have a table at orientation and we needed some display material. So over the weekend I had some pages printed out on a large scale (20″ x 30″) at Kinko’s then mounted them on foam core. I even found some pre-made stands that attach to the back of the boards to hold them up. It was a simple inexpensive project, $20.27, that produced a pretty professional looking product. I am very pleased.

Ask Granholm a Question

I called into ask Governor Granholm a question, too bad the response was just vague rhetoric.  It’s at about 34:40 into the podcast. It’s hard to watch Western receive a disproportionate low amount of funding, when we compare in our research efforts and have created incentives for students to “graduate on time” through the Western Edge. For Information on the latest budget Higher Education in Michigan click here.Update here is what President Dunn thinks.

Being Home

I came to the realization yesterday that this past break was the longest time I have spent at home in a year and a half.  

Links 12-20-2007

• I came across this news article on the WMU website.  Its about some of the research the university is doing on Blind Pedestrians.  I have been a part of the research, through the Noise and Vibration Lab, done with regards to the low noise output of hybrid vehicles.

Home and Waiting

I’m home from my 7th of what will be 10 semesters and waiting to find out my final grades. The break should be good, I’ll spend time working a little at the bookstore and figuring out my year ahead.

Three things are on my mind.

1. What will my summer 2008 look like? I hope to be interning in an engineering position and when I get back I have an interview with an Architecture Engineering firm. This would be great to get, because architecture may be a valid graduate program in my future.
2. Where will I live for the 08-09 school year? Probably in an apartment to keep things simple but then where and with who. It could also be another live in position with free housing but with different responsibilities then being a Resident Assistant.
3. There is a possibility that I may go out for the Chairperson position of a campus organization. The question is if I want or have the time and energy to commit to it. The part that is most hard is I know I would be capable and am already excited about the possibilities of generating growth and sustainability for the organization.

Hopefully by the start of the spring semester in January I will have a better grasp on what I would like to do.

Privileged to Photograph

The past year or so I have had the honor to be in some pretty amazing places. Two summers ago I decided to make the investment into a digital SLR camera, the kind I always had camera envy for. With my new piece of equipment I applied to be a staff photographer for the Western Herald and as part of the job I have the opportunity to get into places I normally would not be admitted.

Covering events on campus I have a different perspective of the university that most don’t see. I use the medium to tell the story of the institution. Bringing to sight what others may pass by or don’t have the access to experience themselves.

With that I take the approach of finding a striking image that brings a reader to the page. This is often hard to find because the events happen often in the same locations with the same bad lighting. This week I covered the president’s state of the university. In a medium sized auditorium with high ceilings and only stage lighting. This would be fine to produce an average image from the house with just a bit of fill flash.

To bad it could not have been more striking. After the event I walked into the cat walk. Had I been there the whole time I would have had a unique angle with plenty of light to play with. It was too late but I’ll remember the location for next time.

To the right are two trustee members talking after the event taken from the catwalk above with only ambient light.

Homecoming: Campus Classic

This is my second time running in the Homecoming 5k, Campus Classic, and my third 5k race ever. They give a pretty cool break down of how well you ran, I don’t have anything to compare it to but I thought I would share.

Overall: 221
Chiptime: 23:58
Class: M 20-24
class_pos: 45
total_pace: 7:44/M

The part that really surprised me was my pace with a 7:44 min mile. In high school I don’t think I could run 1 mile much faster than 8:00 min.

It was a lot of fun to run the race again and this year my brother joined me and was part of the thousand or so others running through campus. It’s a great event and I to be able to do it at least another year.

“Today we dine in Lansing”

That’s right students from across the state of Michigan descended on its capital to let its legislators know one thing, stop putting the financial burden on the backs of the students.

The message was heard buy legislators in the form of a rally held on the capital lawn and talking with them in their offices.

I spent the morning with about a dozen Western Michigan University students lobbying legislators in their offices then joined hundreds of my peers on the lawn of the capital.

We can only hope that our message will be taken to heart and action and an investment in Higher Education will be taken.

links 09-24-2007

• Stop putting the financial burden on the students and fund higher education fairly.