Thinking ahead

Getting back to doing a bit of posting, so I figure I'd post what's been on my mind the most.

After taking the P.E., I was wondering what to do with all of my free time. I've worked a little more on Patches (weather permitting). I've also been doing some thinking.

I've talked with a friend of mine and he said that for an engineer my age, more and more, the Master's degree is the "expected" degree. In a few years, Civil engineers will be required to have a Master's before they're allowed to sit for the P.E. This additional requirement is being pushed mainly by structural engineers. Also, from studying for the P.E., you realize how much is still out there that you really don't know and it's always nice to supplement your technical knowledge. There's also the thought of taking a few business classes.

I've signed up to go back to grad school. I've previously talked about it, but now I've signed up. I've taken the GRE (750 Quantitative; the English score doesn't matter for an engineer*) and filled out a bunch of forms to go to UNO.

One thing I will do when I go back is, as much as schedule allows, take what I'm interested in. As an undergrad, approximately 120 out of 140 hours are basically dictated to you and (especially if you're going through it in 4 years like me) it's a rush to get through.

Oh well. Back to drinking beer and bloody mary's for now.

UPDATE- Another interesting story from a coworker. He used to work for a big public utility in California. There, the engineers were encouraged to get lots of credentials. The recommended track was PE, MBA, Master's, then finally PhD. The goal was to have whatever engineer is working on a project be able to sit in front of the public service commission and beat them over the head with credentials until they got the rate increase they were looking for.

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* The application should read: "Do you speak English? ... No? Well, we'll let you teach anyway if you want to anyway."

News and Notes, Sports Edition - 24 Jan 2010

A few things to read while waiting for Brett Favre's retirement party:

N'awlins Mawlins. Horrible nickname. Not an entirely bad idea.

UNO deals with budget cuts by dropping sports, conference. UNO pulls out of Sun Belt. LSU is happy, especially with their new jock-only $15 million tutoring center. UNO poached a lot of their prime baseball recruits under the Smoke Laval-era. UNO has even beat Tulane quite a few times the last few years. UNO was just starting up a football program...

Bushrod will have Brees' back. We'll see. Here's to pulling a TE to help out. OTOH, Jared Allen is a world-class fuckup. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he gets shitfaced drunk the night before the game, shows up hungover and pukes on the Mardi Grass before passing out from "dehydration" in the middle of the game.

Here's to lots of New Orleans marching band-inspired Crunked-ness: