IRES Assignment 3: Speaking in Russian, Corrosion and Sailboats

                                   

Career aspirations; what I want to do with my future. We're on a topic that seems recent, like I did it before.

Hello, old friends.

I'll do my best.

Before my time here at the UPV, I generally didn't think too much about Civil Engineering lab work. I thought most of the norms used in textbooks and manuals were devised in concrete labs or purely through mathematical analysis. Working at the Electrochemistry department at the Politecnica has shown me how useful cross-discipline cooperation is to solving problems in the real world. I've had to work with a lot of chemicals, using lab protocols that I learned in High School and had to dig in the back of my brain for; but it is all for applied use. While it is true my work here at UPV is a narrow field of study, the researchers I'm working with are spearheads in this field. They're patenting sensors and following several branches of study, all part of the same big corrosion-studying tree. I find it interesting, not only the actual study, (which frankly sounds really interesting to me, but whenever I explain it to someone they always blank look on their face, like I'm speaking in Russian) but also the fact that all the doctors and doctoral students do this for a living. 

As far as what this is all going to be useful for back in the classroom at UTA, that's a different story. I don't think we have a Corrosion class in undergraduate Civil Engineering back home; so, as far as the actual practical knowledge goes, it won't be very useful. But then again, a lot of the classes taught in the first two years provide next to no use farther ahead in your studies, but instead teach you to think analytically. I think that that is what this study is going to be useful for, as well as looking good on my resume and maybe opening the doors for further undergraduate research down the line.

In respects to how this research experience has changed my decisions looking forward to future objectives, I'd say that it's made me more determined to try to follow through the path I had drawn in my head. I think research is cool and everything, but I honestly see my future out on the field. Lab work is fun, but I see it as too far removed from practical applications and solutions. I don't think there is a doctoral degree in my future.

I have, though, seen plenty of sailboats while here in Spain. Maybe I'll be even be able to buy one someday. I'll use that as an incentive. 

Or maybe just rent one.