My Word

Procrastination

Procrastination: First Draft

If I could retake the Calculus 3 Exam in college, I would study a lot harder. The exam came at a point in the semester where an old, familiar phenomena of “senioritis” was beginning to kick in. It was around Thanksgiving when I began to feel this unusual wave of tiredness. Maybe it was all the L-tryptophan in the turkey that I had been eating, or perhaps it was the continual lack of sleep as my workload was increasing. There were two weeks left in the semester, the last of which was finals week. Most of this first week was either spent sleeping or procrastinating on study time. I had an entire semester to prepare for this finals week, and up to this point, I had been keeping up with my work and performing well on my exams. I was most worried about my German and Physics class, which meant that any of the studying I did manage to do went toward these classes. My standing 4.0 in my Calculus and Engineering courses had me feeling confident, resulting in less preparation time for these exams.

This was my first semester in college, and rolling into this week was an extremely nerve-wracking experience. Teachers had converted into review mode and were no longer teaching new material. I had converted into sleep mode, but made every effort I could to absorb what the teachers were saying in class. The weekend had rolled up a lot faster than I had expected. Once I realized how much I had to do and how little time I had, my heartbeat increased, as well as my adrenal level. Monday was my first exam. My mind raced, “Monday, Monday, Monday.” My Calculus final was my first college final, bright and early at 10:00am. I had been neglecting to study for this class for a very long time. I had been to a few review sessions, but had not prepared on my own.

Saturday night came and I decided that I should at least do something for this class. After all, it was only two days away. I rolled out my textbook and notebook and reviewed one of the four units of the semester. I was not extremely productive, but after a few hours, I rolled into bed. After my daily Sunday activity of religious practice, I remembered how little I had done the night before. It was noon, and I was very tired. So instead of being a model student, I rolled into bed again. I woke up a few hours later to pounding on my door. Opening the door, I found my friend, Duke, standing and holding a controller.

“Jesse, get out here and play Xbox with me!” he said. I thought to myself, “This is not a good idea, but, one game can’t hurt.” After a few hours, I realized it was more than one game. Time had flown and when it became 8pm, it was time to get work done. I had blown off the whole day before my Calculus final, and it finally hit me that I needed to get going. I buckled down and went on a long study binge. I had a friend with me the whole time, so of course we would get distracted every once in a while by sites like Imgur and YouTube. A video of cute puppies playing with rabbits dressed as Easter bunnies was worth more of my time than studying for my Calculus final. It was 2am when I looked at the clock and realized how late it had gotten and how tired I was. I had not covered everything, but I covered enough to be ready for the morning.

The sun came up and when my alarm went off at 9:30, I rolled out of bed. I was both scared and confident at the same time. It’s a feeling like drinking a combination of chocolate milk and orange juice—it just doesn’t sit well. I arrived at my exam room 10 minutes early. My heartbeat increased more and more with each second moving closer to 10am. Tick, tock, tick, tock. I was watching the clock projected on the screen at the front of the room. When the clock struck 10:00, the teaching assistants passed out the exam. My heart was racing, palms were sweating, and nerves were wracking. I was prepared. I was ready for this. Twelve problems, no big deal. I flipped it over to begin. I panicked instantly. There were four more problems than I had expected. Why would the teacher do that to me? “Alright. Calm down, Jesse, you’ll be fine,” I thought.

I made it through the first five problems in 30 minutes. I was making good time and was on track to finish early. I got to the next problem and froze. All I could do was stare at the paper, full of words that looked like a foreign language to me. “No problem,” I thought, “just move to the next one and come back later.” However, the next problem looked just as foreign. Now it was getting more serious. I’ll just move onto the next one. This became a pattern. A paradox where my mind knew how to do these problems, but on the testing day, it didn’t. The next hour and a half resembled an exam from hell. I had calmly made it through the first few problems and then suddenly I did not know what I was doing at all. My blood pressure was through the roof until the two hours were over. By the time I turned in my exam, I had pulled enough hair off my head to create a small cat. What on earth just happened to me?

Turning in the exam with so many insufficient answers and blanks was embarrassing. It obviously seemed like I had learned absolutely nothing that semester. It was bad. Really, really bad. I could not get out of my head how awful that hour and a half had been. At this point, I calculated what I would get in the class if I got a 50% on the final—a 3.0. This was far below what I had expected. I had been doing well all semester and for one test, for one test to bring down my grade this much was a disaster. How could I have done so terribly? I was frustrated with myself. I was in denial that such a thing had just happened to me.

There was no way I was going to let this happen on my other exams. I put away my video games, distanced myself from Duke and his distractions, and moved to a quiet space. Every moment I wasn’t taking an exam, sleeping, or eating, I was studying. The following two days were successful. I didn’t bomb anymore exams and made it through finals week with little disappointment. I was very proud with the recovery that I had made, yet I was still dissatisfied with my Calculus exam. I’ll always remember that in times of despair, hope can always be found. Never give up just because one part of the bigger picture is faded. Always look forward.

Engineering in Pop Culture

           Engineering is such a diverse field that portrayal of this field is seen in many different ways in popular culture. Lots of short films, movies, video games, and other mediums show this. Engineers appear to be an important aspect in everything that’s going on. They tend to be either the ones solving the problem in a given scenario, the evil creators of terrifying and destructive machines, or the ones creating devices to combat these machines. They are essential to most of the scenarios we see.

In comics, there’s the famous nemesis of Superman, Lex Luthor. His character is portrayed as an evil scientist and engineer whose objective is to defeat Superman. Lex Luthor’s character is also portrayed in other spin-offs and films in the same manor. Sometimes in more evil ways than others.

In movies, engineering and science are a common portrayal. One of the main characters in the Back to the Future series, Dr. Emmett “Doc” Brown, is one who develops an engineering feat. The movie surrounds his idea, development, and consequences of his engineering feat. Time travel via the Flux Capacitor requiring only 1.21 gigawatts of power, a power source of plutonium, and a car that goes at least 88 MPH. Dr. Brown and the other main character Marty McFly have several adventures using his feat. In another movie, 2012 directed by Roland Emmerich, engineers are seen throughout the movie. The end of the world is near so of course engineers are brought in to help find a solution. Engineers and scientists are seen working on geothermal surveys, doing research, and working on the Arks at the end of the film. Engineering is portrayed in both good and evil ways in films. They are also used in real life to develop these films and release them.

Video games is where we seem to see engineering in its most diverse form. They appear in games like Starcraft as spawns that you can train and develop to build new things for a fictional place. They appear in games like Borderlands, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, Battlefield and Call of Duty where you play as an engineer and are given engineer like roles. These engineering rolls are usually hacking terminals, repairing equipment in gameplay, or arming weapons used against the enemy or for the enemy. Other video games give you the privilege to be an engineer. You design and engineer an entire city in SimCity. You design and engineer a virtual world in the game Minecraft. All over the spectrum of gaming, we constantly run into engineering. In the real world, it takes engineers to create these games and deploy these games as well.

Music is a field that is not as popular on portraying engineers. Not a lot of music these days sings about engineering or has the listener immersed with words like ‘adsorbtion’, ‘greenfield’, or ‘photovoltaics.’ Justin Timberlake would rather sing about mirrors instead of innovation. However, engineers are used in real life to manufacture music. Back beats, balancing audio, and mixing are usually done by audio engineers.

We see engineering portrayed everywhere. It is a massive part of day-to-day life and has its influence spread everywhere. It is a key part of video gaming and is mostly the central plot for films. Engineering is vital to our existence and popular culture demonstrates this through various mediums.

Rising/Falling Action, LM

Rising Action:

The sun came up and when my alarm went off at 9:30, I rolled out of bed. I was both scared and confident at the same time. It’s a feeling like drinking a combination of chocolate milk and orange juice—it just doesn’t sit well. I arrived at my exam room 10 minutes early. My heartbeat increased more and more with each second moving closer to 10am. Tick, tock, tick, tock. I was watching the clock projected on the screen at the front of the room. When the clock struck 10:00, the teaching assistants passed out the exam. My heart was racing, palms were sweating, and nerves were wracking. I was prepared. I was ready for this. Twelve problems, no big deal. I flipped it over to begin. I panicked instantly. There were four more problems than I had expected. Why would the teacher do that to me? “Alright. Calm down, Jesse, you’ll be fine,” I thought.

I made it through the first five problems in 30 minutes. I was making good time and was on track to finish early. I got to the next problem and froze. All I could do was stare at the paper, full of words that looked like a foreign language to me. “No problem,” I thought, “just move to the next one and come back later.” However, the next problem looked just as foreign. Now it was getting more serious. I’ll just move onto the next one. This became a pattern. A paradox where my mind knew how to do these problems, but on the testing day, it didn’t. The next hour and a half resembled an exam from hell. I had calmly made it through the first few problems and then suddenly I did not know what I was doing at all. My blood pressure was through the roof until the two hours were over. By the time I turned in my exam, I had pulled enough hair off my head to create a small cat. What on earth just happened to me?

Falling Action:

          There was no way I was going to let this happen on my other exams. I put away my video games, distanced myself from Duke and his distractions, and moved to a quiet space. Every moment I wasn’t taking an exam, sleeping, or eating, I was studying. The following two days were successful. I didn’t bomb anymore exams and made it through finals week with little disappointment. I was very proud with the recovery that I had made, yet I was still dissatisfied with my Calculus exam.

Product Lifecycle Management

In the mechanical engineering field, product lifecycle management (PLM) is one of the most important concepts. PLM is the engineering concept of designing objects from their ideological beginnings to their disposal. If you want to produce an effective item, it’s very important that you know its lifecycle. PLM helps guide engineers to develop items that are ethical as well as profitable.

            The creative development of an item or idea is a good start. Creating a design concept, building prototypes, and finding resources all fall under the development. Collecting data and thinking all the way through PLM during the design process are very important. One should minimize resource usage in order to create the most efficient items as well as the most conservative items. A company wants to output high quality items, but at the same time needs to be able to profit from the item or will not produce it. The creative development of an item is only the beginning though.

Distribution and logistics of your item also come into play. Knowing geographically where your item will be used is also important. If you were to help deploy a new nuclear power plant for the Chicago area, you would not want a nuclear power core to decay in the middle of downtown Chicago. You need to be aware the safety of your item and the danger it can cause. The engineers responsible for a man-made disaster are held liable unless they can prove otherwise. Being responsible in this area is key to PLM.

You also need to know when the item will be highly effective and no longer effective. This ties in distribution and logistics in saying that the item you create needs to be deployed when it will be most effective. It also needs to be disposed of when it is no longer effective. If you genetically modify a banana to ripen five days after it is picked, it better be on the shelves at the grocery store before those five days are up. If it is not, it will have to be disposed of in a way that does not affect normal bananas.

Finally, you need to know what you will do with the item when you have to dispose of it. Will the item be recyclable? Will it be put in a landfill? Will it be burned? Are there any harmful substances inside this item? In what way can I dispose of this item without causing danger to people? All of these questions fall under this category and they are very important to note in PLM. If you are a company creating toys for a McDonald’s Happy Meal and you decide to use lead paint just on the basis that it is cheaper, you honestly did not think through PLM in development of the item. The lead paint is more profitable for the company to use, but the disposal of these toys will be hazardous and this puts serious risk to the health of the children. Disposal of the item ties back into the design concept as you need to be aware of the resources that you use. This is the end of the PLM cycle and it is very important.

Product lifecycle management is a big part of engineering. It is a broad concept and it is key in the grand theorem of engineering. From start to finish, one needs to know everything about the development, implication, and consequences of something new. It also is key in developing items that are profitable as well as people and earth friendly.

This image is very good at summing up this post: