i am taking a one-semester sabbatical from my surveying and engineering work to teach at my old alma mata, Mississippi State University.
I am a solo operator, so I did not have to worry about employees. "This ought not to be too hard," I thought. I picked up three sections of Engineering Mechanics I (statics) with a total of just over 150 students, ranging from sophomores to seniors in many of the schools of engineering. Add that to my existing Graphic Communication class, and I am looking at around 200 students. Granted, it has been 40 years since I took statics in my undergrad work. But, I have taught the technical level at a community college for about 18 years. I am reading the book, working the problems, and blowing the dust and cobwebs off my memories of academic level engineering mechanics. This is going to take more effort than I first realized! I am putting in the effort to do a good job, knowing full well the responsibility to do so.
This is physics and calculus based engineering mechanics, and not only am I needing to remember the course material, I need to brush up on physics, derivatives, double integration, and finding the determinant of a matrix. I remember the 2D vector mechanics OK, and I can work with 3D vectors because of the similarities with the measurement of 3D coordinates using a total station and software in the surveying profession. I vaguely remember some things; maybe they are new or have a different "spin." Other things never change, such as Newton's Laws. It is interesting to me to study again in the field of engineering mechanics. i pulled out my trusty old HP11C calculator, and it does the job just fine. The students think that is interesting, especially when I tell the story about me being in college and my old chemistry professor pulled out his trusty slide rule to do calcs. My dad gave me his K&E slide rule he used when he was in engineering school during the mid-50's.
I have a great bunch of guys to work with in the aerospace department, which oversees the engineering mechanics courses, and they are willing to help the new guy out. The graphic communication class is under the industrial and systems engineering department, All of the engineering departments have taken up staffing and teaching curriculum coursework for the first two years of all of the engineering schools. I am classified as an instructor, or lecturer for the college of engineering at MSU, so I am not a departmental professor. I have been given the use of an office in McCain Engineering, and I walk up and down that same flight of well-worn stairs I trod as a student those many years ago. I was amazed that I met and talked to an office manager lady who works part time that started to work at MSU two years before I started in 1974. We talked about how much has changed in the past 42 years. I am enjoying this, and I am humbled by being able to give something back to the college by being able to teach the next generation of our future engineers.
I turn 60 in March. One day, I will slow down. But not now! I still do surveying work two days per week including Saturdays. Ya'll carry on.
You have my admiration, Harold. That is definitely a challenging task you have set out to perform.
For many engineering students statics is the first significant class they take that is taught by engineering professors. All of the weed out classes in the math and science core classes are handled by professors in those curricula. I recall quite a number of wannabe engineers who did terribly in statics and immediately bailed out. Some would last another semester or so before switching majors to something like history or journalism.
My statics professor was Dr. Hu. He had a very strong Taiwanese accent despite having lived in the US longer than I had been alive. There were a handful of foreign students from Nigeria and Bangladesh in that class. It was enlightening to pick up on the different pronunciations of the Greek letters used routinely in that course based on the native tongue of the speaker. Too bad we had no one in that class from Greece to straighten us out.
A friend of mine was in a different statics class that happened to have a number of electrical engineering students in it. One day one of the EE's was complaining that he could see no relevance to electrical engineering for statics. My friend interjected to explain that it was critical because they needed to understand the additional loading on their roadside power lines when a few thousand birds all stopped for a rest at the same time. The shape of the catenary would definitely be altered.
Harold, congratulations. I became a full-time teacher at age 56 and retired a few months before my 70th birthday. Mine was high school; less challenging course material but more "growing up" challenges.
i learned something new almost every day. Sometimes it was something like the "shoe man" (the guy who sell counterfeit Nikes from a van in the hood) and other times, it was discovering something new in old math, sometimes during one of my lectures. Regardless, those enlightenments were extremely satisfying.
One piece of advice I would give you is to embrace the technology. You have a leg up with your surveying experience, but technology has changed the way virtually every job is done today. Teachers have to translate theory into technique or else create empty-headed button-pushers. Many of your students will have used calculators and computers as crutches, so getting the theory in before the tech takes over can be difficult.
It'll be a challenge, but you're gonna love it!!
What text are you using?
I remember Beer and Johntson "Statics and Dynamics" from Lehigh University. Professor Beer (pronounced Bear) was still active on the Lehigh Faculty at that time. The text was an engineering classic. I had no problem with statics but the following class in dynamics was difficult. That is one of he reasons I swiched from Engineering Mechanics to Civil Engineering where things were at least believed to stand still.
Paul in PA
Our textbook is by Hibbler, 14th edition.
When I was at State, my survey lab instructor was Rolphie Burt. Ran into him a few months back and he's still got that flat top!! He knows surveying from alpha to omega, but he REALLY needs a more up-to-date barber!!
Congratulations Harold! I hope this works out for you. I've heard several people say they would like to see you get the surveying classes as well (me included).
[USER=527]@cptdent[/USER] Funny story about Roffie. Last year I was surveying a lot close to where Roffie lives now. We had our gps set up in a cul de sac where Roffie walks every morning. I looked over and he was standing at my base looking it over real close. I hollered "Hey! Get away from that equipment!" He jumped and said "I'm just looking at this new receiver", then he saw who I was. Well you know what happened, he wanted to see my set up sheet showing my planning mission and I got a 30 minute lecture about how I had it set up in the wrong place. Some things never change!:stakeout:
Congratulations, Harold! Sounds like a fun semester.
I have a niece and nephew in the engineering program at MSU, so if you run into any Billingsleys, it's probably them
I'm envious in a way. I have often been told by people around me that I missed my calling by not becoming a teacher. I usually tell them that I don't have the patience to teach.
That being said, I have toyed with the idea of teaching the "Surveying Basics" class at our local junior college for a while now. When I went there, almost 30 years ago, the class wasn't offered because there was no one to teach it. It sometimes appears on the class catalog under the Agricultural Engineering Department. It all depends upon whether or not there is an instructor. I've really felt like it needs to be a permanent class on the curriculum. And perhaps I should look into this more since I feel that it would definitely help out students looking for a career path AND it would also be a great vocational course for the local field crew wanting to have some "formal training" that would help them towards getting their LSIT certification.
Great job on giving back to the survey community!
We need instructors in the surveying curriculum to facilitate the scholastic route to become a profession land surveyor in the several community colleges in our state. The shortsightedness by leadership at the community college where i used to work axed the surveying option along with the program major......twice, in Drafting and Design Technology, and Civil Engineering Texhnology.
MSU teaches their surveying classes in the college of civil and environmental engineering, and they have a really good instructor. He also has some mighty big shoes to fill. Mr. Roffie Burt (now retired) has my respect and admiration as one of the best surveying instructors locally known. One summer, I had the distinct honor of working with Mr. Burt at the same company where I was employed in Starkville. Our employer also taught surveying classes at MSU in the 1960's, and it was really interesting to hear these two get into a spirited conversation.
The community college in Jackson tried at one time to have a qualified (registered) land surveyor teach classes on Saturdays, but it did not work out very well for various reasons. Not too many people wanted to attend classes on Saturdays, and it was hard to find an instructor who worked all week to teach on Saturdays and deal with all the paperwork.
A lot of people want to become a land surveyor, but end up changing their mind when they find out that there is a lot of time and work involved to learn a profession. The required mentorship time does not pay too well, but if they can just stay with it, the rewards will be good. They have to really want to become a professional surveyor in order to go through the learning and testing process.
I missed our annual surveying conference/seminar in Vicksburg this year because of a conflict with my teaching schedule. Most of the seminar attendees are older, greying people like me. However, it is encouraging to see many young people coming up through the ranks of our profession.
