Thursday, July 17, 2008

Alright so I haven't posted much

I know I know, I've kind of dropped off the face of the internet for a couple days maybe even a week and in terms of the internet and technology that can be forever, but it's been busy with moving and and class and I just recently got the internet back.

Well lets see, bunch of stuff going on...let's start with probably my favorite bit-academics.

Ok so right now as I write this I have 88 credits and I'm sitting at 3.51 GPA overall-decently good but not where I want it (should be 91 credits at 3.7 but whatever). Anyway I woke up early this morning to go talk to my adviser about the much fabled BS/MS-fabled because I've been trying to get into that sucker for a while now. But here's the news on that one. As soon as I complete this summer term (August 9th) I shall be applying for the program. Now this is a bit crazy because while I will have 90 credits at that time, I'm not planning on finishing the undergraduates until spring 2010. For the BS/MS program the last two semester of your undergraduate are where you take the 4000 levels that double count. (this is concise plan coming next) So, I apply for the BS/MS Fall 08. I spend Fall 08 and Spring 09 being a regular Engineering student. Small Small Chance that I'll need to do classes Summer II 09 (hopefully not!). Fall 09 and Spring 10 I spend finishing my undergrads while (at the same time) starting my graduate degree in Electrical Engineering. Summer I and Summer II 10 I have no idea right now (might have to spend in Blacksburg doing research, might spend in Warrenton working). Fall 10 and Spring 11 I spend finishing my graduate degree and graduate Spring 11 with a Masters in Electrical Engineering! Then I go in the world find a job, a house, a wife, a house, and a sack of gold so I don't have to be a sprite. Then I get the people I work for to send for a Ph.D.

In other academic news I get to officially be a double major now-instead of just doing all the work without the official recognition. I'm completing the form later today and sending that in. I am not currently an official double major because football didn't want be to do as such-something about eligibility or some nonsense, but I don't have to deal with them any more.

Exciting news-I have a job, I am designing, building, and testing an autonomous undersea vehicle for the US Navy. I should be making about $10/hour, but that is technically not certain yet. Ok so now for the story behind this one a little bit. I emailed Dr. Stilwell because I knew I wanted to do research for him, I was expecting unpaid research for credit. He responded very quickly and told me that there just might be a paid internship position open for an undergrad. I went in to talk to him and he mentioned that contingent on his alloted budget he might be able to take me on as a paid undergraduate research for $10/hour. It'll be rather flexible Dr. Stilwell will mostly likely only let me work 10 hours per week just because of his budget could probably only afford that much and because he wants me to still focus on school work. Technically I believe the university will only let me work 20 hours. But after I was talking to Dr. Stilwell about the project for a bit he took me to meet the whole research team and what not and the guy I would be working for directly. I'm going to be part of the navigation team consiting mostly of me and a real life graduated engineer. I'm naturally pretty excited about such-it's not entirely certain that I'll be paid, but I'd do the work for free-the pay just makes life easier all around.

I think that cover's most of my academics and all. Jenn is late to work today and a little stressed, but it's going well with her. Paul and I cleared out the rest of our storage. the apartment is definitely coming together, even if slowly. This post might be a little disjointed cause I'm excited and slightly unorganized right now and the writting of this post has spanded an entire day pretty much. Right now I have to go clean some disks and what not so I'll have to post again later.

2 comments:

engineeredmadness said...

OH NO!!!!!! NAVIGATION!!!!!


I would suspect much use of INS and sonar. NO GPS for you!

Billy Grasmeder said...

Wow. All of that is extremely impressive! That job sounds pretty awesome, too!!!! Lucky duck.