h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sorry it took me so long to reply to your message on my home page thingy. I've been somewhat lax in looking at it during this latest term at school. I was quite surprised to see that someone actually looked at my page. To answer your questions I'm interested in the Water Resources end of Civil engineering and I'm really not all that far into it yet. Right now I'm just finishing up my 3rd term in school and about to start my second work term. I'm afraid that I can't think of any projects to make the civils space look used because I haven't really done anything interesting here yet. Oh yeah, 'here' is the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. For some reason I'm under the impression that engineering in Britain means something different than engineering here in Canada, am I wrong? Well I should be studying calculus so I'll talk to you later.

Ben

Ben,

I don't think there's a difference - unless it's that "engineer" can also mean train driver! Thanks for replying. I too should be studying, so TTFN

Cadi

Again, sorry about the late reply but I've been without computer for a few weeks. I'm back online again now though at my new Co-op placement in Mississauga Ontario, just outside of Toronto. So far this job is fairly interesting and they're keeping me pretty busy. How'd your exams go?

Ben

I don't have exams 'til the summer - instead I've got a ton of coursework, all due in over the next two weeks!!! So I, too, am pretty busy! What are you doing on this placement? (as in: what does it involve?) My placement is all in one block, June '03-September '04. I don't know where I'm going yet, I need to start arranging it in about 6 months time. Do you arrange your own placements, or are they done by the college?

And now - back to the grind stone. I just dropped in for relief from equations and reams or notes to write up!

Cadi

The university does most of the arranging but I still have to go through interviews for each job. The placement I'm in now is by far the best job that I've ever had, at least so far. To date I've just been aiding some real engineers with pumping station and Water treatment plant design and planning. Also the usual grunt work around the office that falls to the students. What kind of course work are you doing?

Ben

My courseworks have been in: maths, materials, MATLAB (computer programming), electrical science, AutoCAD and English. Mostly sheets of questions to answer, or a project to do. They are all finished and handed in now, so I can stop worrying about them. I *think* (hope?) I passed, but I'll find out in a few weeks. If I did badly in any of them, I still have the exams in the summer to pull my average up.

We have done very little "hands on" work - it's been all theory. But hopefully we will be doing more practical work this term. We've got two lab sessions a week, starting next week.

Do your placements count toward your degree? At the moment, ours doesn't but the head of department is trying to change that. There is a lot of building going on in Birmingham (UK, that is)at the moment, and so I might try and get in to that for my placement.

Water treatment plant? Sounds interesting. How long are you there for?

Cadi

Matlab and electrical science? Blech. My placements do count towards my degree which will have co-op somewhere in the title. Everybody at UW has to complete 6 work terms, in addition to the regular coursework, in order to graduate. Each work term is 4 months so I'll be here for roughly another 3 months.
Do you have the option to specialize in anything in particular?

Ben

Yeah, BLECH is right. At least I don't have them this term. As far as specialising goes, I don't know yet, but I think we have some choice in the final year. Personally, I don't know what I want to do yet, so it's a good thing I've got a while to decide.

Oi, work is getting crazy around here. Do you know what happens when a project is a month and a half late and about $100,000 over budget?
Nothing good. Oh well, at least it's not my fault. Well, back to work for me. Anything interesting happening over there?

Ben