Mixed signals
While I would really have loved the title to be a pun on signal processing, I have to admit that today’s post is not about that esteemed branch of electrical engineering. Instead, I’m going to talk about mixed messages I’ve been receiving. I had some colleagues from our university career center come and speak to students last week about the services they offer. Recently, the career center held a job fair, and one of the speakers said that many of the companies asked her where all the electrical engineers were. Apparently, the midwest has really had some serious job growth since the economic downturn in 2008, and there just aren’t enough students for internships and maybe even jobs. While I appreciate that being the perspective from a career counselor, I spent a bit of time looking over the engineering entry in the occupational outlook handbook compiled by the Bureau of Labor…
The (not so) solid ground beneath my feet
Today, I’m going to step out of my role as an EE and briefly explore the world of geological engineering. I am, after all, working on a degree in geophysics, and throughout my education, I’ve been exposed to the applied side of geology and geophysics a few times. One of the reasons I find this field interesting is because I live in a city on stilts. Fargo is built on top of sediments of glacial Lake Agassiz, a huge prehistoric lake that formed when glaciers melted after the last ice age. The glaciers melted from south to north, leaving the path to Hudson Bay blocked by ice and the water without a place to go. This meant that the lake sat there for thousands of years, giving it plenty of time to lay down a layer of silt well over 100 ft. thick. The silt is clay that easily absorbs…