[Rhodes22-list] The Nerd Goes Back To School

Wally Buck tnrhodey at hotmail.com
Mon Sep 1 10:17:52 EDT 2003


Roger,

I always thought the older guys I went to schoool with just did it for the 
chicks and parties. I suggest some piercings and a pony tail so you feel 
more comfortable! :-)

Have you considered looking for something at the Oak Ridge National Lab here 
in East TN? Oak Ridge was built (in secret) in 1943 to produce and separate 
plutonium for the World War II Manhattan Project. It is still a huge DOE 
facility and one of the largest nucleur research centers in the US. I think 
there are about 4K scientists and engineers of all type working out at the 
lab. Many are DOE employees, many more work for companies like Bechtel, 
SAIC, and smaller start ups. There is lots of focus on environmental clean 
up and waste disposal. Thousands more in non research type positions. It is 
a state of the art research facility that rivals any in the world. They do a 
lot more than build bombs, now they do all types of research in the energy 
and medical fields.

http://www.ornl.gov/

I have a bunch of friends who work at ORNL, they are literally "rocket 
scientists". Some work on top secret stuff and I have no idea what they do. 
They just let me hang out with them because I am fun at parties. :)

Good luck,

Wally



>From: "Roger Pihlaja" <cen09402 at centurytel.net>
>Reply-To: The Rhodes 22 mail list <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
>To: "The Rhodes 22 mail list" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
>Subject: [Rhodes22-list] The Nerd Goes Back To School
>Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2003 05:53:59 -0400
>
>Hi Everybody,
>
>Well, my life has changed again!  I've gone back to school at Saginaw 
>Valley State University (SVSU).  I've enrolled in their 2nd baccalaureate 
>degree program in an attempt to earn a BS degree in mechanical engineering 
>(BSME).  As many of you know, I already hold BS & MS degrees in chemical 
>engineering.
>
>The whole thing happened pretty quickly.  In the end of July, 2003, I 
>received an advertising flier in the mail from SVSU.  As I quickly glanced 
>thru it, intending to toss it out as junk mail, I noticed SVSU had this 
>"2nd Baccalaureate Degree Program" & they had programs in mechanical & 
>electrical engineering.  The BSME & BSEE degree programs really caught my 
>eye because I wasn't aware SVSU had an engineering school.  Up to that 
>point, I thought the closest school that offered engineering degrees was 
>Michigan State University in E. Lansing, MI, about 100 miles away.  So, the 
>next day, I arranged an appointment with the SVSU Admissions Dept., took a 
>tour of campus & the Engineering School, & talked with a couple of the 
>engineering professors.  I came away convinced these folks & their program 
>were for real!  The decision to pursue the mechanical engineering degree is 
>purely market driven.  As I've been job searching, it appears about 75% of 
>the engineering jobs that come onto the market in this area are for ME's.  
>In my previous job, at the Dow Chemical Co., I did a lot of mechanical 
>engineering-related work.  Those of you familiar with my technical writing 
>for the Rhodes 22 list know that most of it is mechanical engineering 
>oriented.  With 26 years of experience, I could probably do the job in most 
>of these positions.  However, without an ME degree, I couldn't even get an 
>interview.
>
>However, I've been unemployed since March, 2002 & our savings are dwindling 
>away pretty quickly.  In addition, my older son Daniel, is just starting 
>his 2nd year of college as a Graphic Arts major.  So, from a family 
>resources point of view, I needed to get the required class credits for 
>this BSME degree down to something that could be completed in a year or 
>less.  That's where this 2nd Baccalaureate Degree Program came to the 
>rescue.  Despite the fact that my 1st BS degree from Michigan Technological 
>University dates back to 1975, in the 2nd Baccalaureate Degree Program, all 
>the general education class requirements were waived.  All I had to do was 
>determine how many of my chemical engineering college credits would 
>transfer & count towards the mechanical engineering program.  Getting an 
>official copy of my transcript from Michigan Tech sent to SVSU was no 
>problem.  However, I needed to somehow get documentation of the course 
>content of certain of my chemical engineering courses from the years 1971 - 
>1976!
>
>So, on very short notice, in the 1st week of August, Daniel & I made a road 
>trip up to Michigan Technological University in Houghton, MI.  Houghton is 
>in the NW upper peninsula of Michigan, about 450 miles away.  We left early 
>one morning & got to Houghton by about 2:00 PM.  I spent the rest of the 
>afternoon in the archives of the campus library.  The library archives had 
>bound paper copies of the academic catalogs from the years I attended 
>school there.  I was able to photocopy the course descriptions I needed out 
>of these original academic catalogs.  We camped overnight nearby & drove 
>home the next day.
>
> >From these course descriptions, a few syllabuses (syllabi?) I still had 
>from my college notebooks, and some letters of recommendation from my 
>former colleagues at Dow Chemical Co., I put together a stack of course 
>petitions wherein I attempted to preempt out of as many ME courses as 
>possible.  For each required ME course, I took the course descriptions from 
>the current SVSU academic catalog and tried to justify my case that 
>combinations of 3, 4, or even 5 classes from Michigan Tech &/or my work 
>experience provided equivalent training.  I had to prepare stand alone 
>course petitions for each SVSU course I wanted credit for.  I also had to 
>sort thru the remaining required SVSU classes to figure which ones I still 
>needed to take.  In certain cases, I had to petition SVSU to allow me to 
>take classes and their prerequisite classes concurrently.  I had to submit 
>these petitions to the SVSU mechanical engineering dept. and the entire ME 
>dept. faculty voted on each one in private session.   After all the 
>academic dust settled, I've managed to enter SVSU as a senior with 93 
>credit hours in the bag and 36 credit hours remaining to be earned.  This 
>works out to 17 credit hours per semester in the fall and winter terms plus 
>2 credit hours in the summer, 2004 semester.  At this rate, I'll be done by 
>August, 2004 with less than $10,000 invested, not including commuting 
>costs.  It's doable; but, I'm going to need to find a job ASAP after that!  
>If it's not in engineering, I may be flipping burgers at McDonalds a year 
>from now.
>
>12 - 18 credit hours is considered the "normal" range of full time student 
>load.  So, 17 credit hours per semester doesn't sound like a real heavy 
>load, right?  However, the course petitioning process left me with mostly 
>the really hard core ME classes to take - i.e. the real "killer" classes 
>that everyone dreads.  The normal 4 year BSME degree program has students 
>taking only one, or at most two, of these killer classes per semester.  I'm 
>taking three of these beasts at the same time this semester, plus a couple 
>of somewhat easier (for me) courses.  The winter semester class load will 
>be similar.  Keeping in mind the last calculus class I took was something 
>like 30 years ago, the homework load is staggering!  For some reason, I 
>only have classes Monday - Thursday.  But, on Monday, Tuesday, & Wednesday, 
>I have classes from 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM with a 45 minute commute on each 
>end.  Fortunately, there is downtime during the day to do homework in 
>between classes.  Being a morning person, I'm not too thrilled with the 12 
>hour days & the late evening schedule.  But, in each case, there was only 
>one section of the class available.  So, my class schedule has zero degrees 
>of freedom.  I'm fortunate it's even possible at all!  I'm very motivated; 
>but, hopefully, haven't taken on more than I can handle here.
>
>So, on September 22nd, I will turn 50 years old.  I will spend my 50th 
>birthday in college classes with students less than half my age.  Because 
>of my late night class schedule, I've resigned my adult leader position in 
>my Boy Scout troop.  You won't be hearing about any more Boy Scout Polar 
>Bear Winter Camping trips for awhile.  For now, I've kept my adult leader 
>position in the Venture Unit.  But, I've warned them I won't be attending 
>any Monday night unit meetings and will be very selective about attending 
>weekend outings for the next year.  Hey, load had to be shed somewhere & I 
>think I'm going to need the weekends to catch up!  I plan to stay on the 
>Rhodes list, but probably won't be as active in my contributions.  I hope 
>you all understand.
>
>Despite the work load, my attitude is better than it's been in a long time. 
>  I'm a very active person & engineers are, by nature, hard wired to be 
>problem solvers.  The past 18 months of fruitless job searching has been 
>pure torture & my ego & self esteem have really taken a beating.  I don't 
>know where this new phase of my life is eventually going to end up.  But, 
>at least there's a goal to be worked for & it feels like I'm moving forward 
>again.  My wife, Deb, is nervous about the cost & worried about me bearing 
>up under the crushing class load; but, in the end supportive.  She was 
>appalled at how many hours it took me to do my homework & amazed at how 
>cheerfully I did it.  The nerd has gone back to school!
>
>Wish me luck!
>
>Roger Pihlaja
>S/V Dynamic Equilibrium
>
>
>
>
>__________________________________________________
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