Feeling “Stupid”

I am not going to lie to my audience.  In fact, I rarely lie at all these days, unless of course it is to not offend a customer’s raving review of a beer I would sooner wash down the drain like a spider.  Personally, I usually let the spiders do their thing, they take care of the majority of insects that you really don’t want in the house.  Apparently, I used to lie as a child, because my mother cut out a cartoon of a spider Bill Clinton weaving a web with the word “lies” in it.

So I am not going to lie to you now when I tell you that I put most of my creativity into this blog post, but quotas will be quotas and I have to meet mine.

As a few of you may know, I am not by any means the most intelligent student in the SEL (Science and Engineering Library, in case you’re one of the seemingly many that don’t understand the acronym).  In fact, I’d venture to say that some of the people that don’t know me may find me to be an obnoxious moron sometimes.  I most certainly may be misinterpreted by people sitting around our engineering archipelago, but many of you know that I am usually just trying to alleviate some of that weight I mentioned so frequently in the article above.

One of the most inspiring things that began to happen to me occurred in the Spring 2016 semester.  I was enrolled in the most sophisticated courses I had ever taken, and my workload was immense and trying.  I do not by any means consider myself “smart.”  In fact, I felt pretty good when Dr. Ferrar mentioned on Day 1 that he never got to where he was “by being the smartest person in the room, but I was always the hardest worker.”  I spent countless hours reading textbooks, examples, and articles that encompassed whichever subject I was focused on at the moment.  My hard work paid dividends.

I was actually doing very well in my courses.  So well in fact, that I was appointed a “study group” leader in Mechanics of Solids.  During crunch time in Dynamics and Thermo, people were coming to me for help with studying when they were stuck.  How the hell did that happen?  Certainly not because I was smarter than anyone in the room, I can tell you that as an absolute fact.  I was dedicated to the material though, and I wanted to get smarter.

I didn’t want to just follow the process to get the right answer, I wanted to know why I was making certain relations between processes, variables, and equations.  In fact, I still have the same mindset, and I’m sure that may perplex some of my wonderful classmates,  “we got the answer already, what the hell is Tim still talking about this for?”  I can’t blame them, even my closest peers must think I’m at least eccentric, to put it lightly.

In the end, it’s just because I feel stupid most of the time.  Don’t feel sorry for me, I’m not saying that as a bad thing!  It can be frustrating at times, but if you put forth the effort, you will surely be rewarded in the end.  Pretty much, I wrote this blog specifally to leave you with this recent quote from r/engineeringstudents that I can’t find.

“If you don’t feel stupid, then you aren’t learning.”

-unknown user

Thanks for reading!

TM

Looking at Things Differently

Ironically enough, Michelob Ultra Light in the background.

While working the other day, I came across this unassuming graphic on an outdated case of Belhaven Oatmeal Stout.  Our store does not usually make a habit out of carrying old beer, but when a wholesaler has to dump something off, they know where they can go.  My current employer is the second largest distributor (by sales) in Bucks County, and was Numero Uno until the owner opened up the biggest (by volume) distributor, approximately 4 miles away.  Anyway, we have plenty of customers that will gladly pay $18.99 for a 7.5% abv stout that doesn’t taste too off from when it was originally $59.99.

As a “beer expert,” (seriously, try me) I have noticed over the last decade that many consumers confuse the hue of a beer with its “weight.”  Now in this instance, they would be correct to assume that a darker beer would be “heavier” than a lighter beer (I refer to Ultra as a “heavier” water).  What very few people know; however, is that Guinness is actually one of the lightest beers you can drink.  Twelve ounces of Guinness is 125 calories and only 4.2% abv, and perhaps even less filling is the fact that it utilizes a nitro mix; that is, approximately 75% nitrogen to 25% carbon dioxide.  So for all of you “Guinness is too heavy for me” people, consider yourself learnt.

As an engineering student, the word weight can have a few different meanings.  The grade weight of certain exams, projects, or other assignments is something that we all spend an exorbitant amount of time trying to decipher; time that would most certainly be better spent improving said grades.

Weight, as a student of physics, is a force of course.  You can’t have weight unless you have a mass, such as 14 kilograms, and then we have to multiply that by the gravitational constant ~9.81 m/s^s.  That gives us a beautiful “W,” which is much lovelier in SI than all of that lb-f and lb-m nonsense.  I am sure that someone around here could be a real stickler and bring up the fact that gravity is variable depending on elevation.  Personally, I would tell that individual to take a hike to Nevado Huascarán in Peru, which according to this study from 2013 is 9.76932 m/s^2.

Perhaps the weight that many of us are most familiar with is a figurative manifestation of the physical force.  The weight of our course loads, our assignments, and our exams.  Perhaps you’re like me, and you are maintaining a job during your education.  Perhaps you are insane and are working full-time while dealing with this major.  Don’t forget about that personal life, which depending on your ability to cope can range from non-existant to chaotic to therapeutic, and not necessarily in that or any other order.

What I have discovered about this major is that much like a structure that needs to support many loads (shout out to you CE’s), even in the most dire of straits we seem to band together and lessen the reaction forces.  Working with my fellow engineering students has provided many valuable lessons about teamwork, and when we are all working on that problem for 4 hours together, it lessens the weight on my mind (and hopefully yours).

Anyway, I noticed this “misprint” on the package, and I decided to mention this to my coworkers.  For some reason I like to make frequent use of engineering, math, and science dialogue or references.  I’m not sure if it’s because I want to show off (as if anyone actually cared haha), or if it is because I actually like to think in those kinds of terms.  If for nothing else, my pursuit of an ME degree has revitalized my ability to think more critically (not that this was a critical thought) about inconsequential events in the universe.

Upon informing my coworkers of this travesty on a dusty case of old Scottish stout, I was sarcastically informed that, “you can’t get anything by these engineering students,” in jest of course.  I can’t blame anyone for mocking my tendency to make these connections of everyday occurrences to my studies.  If you know me, then you know that nothing is safe from my lighthearted ridicule.

And that’s why I love our major.  I am certainly not the only one around here that knows how to keep it light while maintaining workload efficiency.  Thanks for helping with the weight.

Also, thanks for reading and best of luck this weekend!

TM

Bonus: before this caption my post was coincidentally the same number of words as another one of my favorite aircraft.

 

Introduction to the Author

Boeing C-17 Globemaster III in Antarctica

Hello Dr. Ferrar, classmates, and anyone else that may find this blog.  I would like to start off by apologizing for the appearance of this site; at the time of this post I have had limited experience with WordPress formatting and will continue to develop that skill as the semester moves forward.  Although it is tempting to purchase the premium membership for full control of this page, I will give myself a bit more time to adjust to the formatting aspect of the blog.

My name is Timothy McMullen, and I am a mechanical engineering major here at Temple University.  I have taken what you may refer to as “the scenic route” during the course of my college education, and only in the last few years did I finally discover an area of study that I would end up immersing myself in.  Directly out of high school, I had no idea what course of action to take regarding my future, and so I enrolled in Bucks County Community College to take general emphasis courses, with a focus in music technology (I was in a few bands at the time).  Working and making money would take my focus off of school though, and after a few years I graduated with a relatively useless (relatively because thanks to my BCCC degree, I would not ever have to take a Gen Ed course at TU) Associate’s Degree.

Fast forward a few more years, and I found that my well-paying management job at a beer distributor was not going to be enough for me to attain some of the goals that I hoped to accomplish.  I always had a fascination with aviation, and found the job that forensic investigators with the National Transportation Bureau of Safety (NTSB) to be especially important when investigating accidents.  NTSB agents are responsible for literally piecing together enormous vessels that have been decimated by unfathomable forces, and then identifying what sometimes turns out to be a seemingly minuscule oversight in design or an unnoticed component in need of maintenance.  With this admiration in mind, I would read more and more about aviation and specifically the development and specifications of jet-powered commercial aircraft.

This fascination and research eventually led me to mechanical engineering, and when someone close to me suggested that I go back to school and seek a degree in the field, I jumped at the opportunity.  I spent a semester at Temple University Japan in Tokyo, retaking some math courses and college-level writing courses while living in one of the most technologically advanced cities in the world.  When I came back to the States I was admitted into the same College of Engineering major that my younger brother (unbeknownst to me) was attending.  Having someone in my immediate family that shared the same passion as myself was a great boost for my ability to learn material and develop ideas, as it frequently enabled us to engage in intelligent and problem-solving conversations.

With this semester underway, I am hoping to use this blog to discuss the applications of the Fluid Dynamics and Linear Systems courses taught by Dr. Ferrar to each other and to aerospace engineering, which coincidentally turns out to be his specific area of research.  I have come a long way since taking Introduction to Music Technology courses at BCCC.  I am looking forward to working with you, my classmates, this semester, and continuing my journey towards the sky, both literally and figuratively.

Thank you for reading,

TM