Category: school

Last night’s conference call about a presentation for school.
There were six of us on the phone call.

Teammate 1: Okay, so we’ve got our powerpoint together, how do we want to present this thing?
Teammate 2: I could start the presentation, maybe hit up slides 1 through 3?
Teammate 5: That’s good teammate 1. cool thanks.
Teammate 1: I could pick up for you there, but I’m not a very good presenter. It might be wiser to have someone else do it.
Teammate 2: Wait, should I go up to slide 4?
Teammate 4: Yeah, that’s a better breaking point.
Teammate 3: Agreed.
Teammate 1: So who’s going to present the next half? Does anyone want to do it?

Complete silence.

Teammate 1: okay. Well then. Mike D? Can you do it?
Mike D: Awwww man. Darn it. Ugh. Fine I’ll do it.

As this afternoon’s events transpired, I went from confused to miserable. I actually felt nauseous for a little bit. Not to the point of vomiting, but the anxious butterflies were definitely there and they were definitely breeding at exponential rates.

On August first I announced gleefully on this very website the completion of my mechanical engineering requirements. Nothing has changed. I still have all those requirements completed. Let’s drill down to make sure.

Requirements for a Mechanical Engineering Degree at the University of New Haven.
6 mandatory courses – Status: COMPLETE
Theory of Elasticity
Advanced Fluids
Advanced Thermodynamics
Advanced Dynamics
Numerical Methods
Mechanical Eng. Analysis

2 mechanical engineering course of our choice – Status: COMPLETE
Combustion
Heat Transfer

and 3 of anything – Status: COMPLETE
Independent Project: FEA analysis of Rock Climbing Carabiners
RPI TRANSFER: Statistics
RPI TRANSFER: Accounting

This adds up to a total of 33 credits. 27 in house, and 6 that I was able to transfer from RPI.

So I sent in my petition to graduate and was promptly informed that I did not meet the “residency” requirement of 30 credits and I need to take another class.

Wait.

What?

I did not meet the “residency” requirement of 30 credits and I need to take another class.

.

.

.

This is me shocked.
This is me facing 42 more hours of class time, 14 weeks of homework, 14 days without carpool, countless lost lunches, hours of cramming, two tests, a project, and another 2 months without a degree on my wall.
This is me depressed.

Last night Early this morning our group finished the last bits of our presentation for this semester’s MBA class. It took a ton of work, but I think it came out pretty decently. It was a bit annoying because certain members of the group really weren’t participating that much.

Project work can be really draining. I may have mentioned my problem with project groups before. In an academic environment, if one person doesn’t pull their weight – everyone else suffers heavily and the person who didn’t participate will probably get the same grade – worst case maybe they drop a letter. In a job environment, if one person doesn’t pull their weight – they get fired.

It can be frustrating for sure.