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Posted by: chelsea86 Original: 1/21/2008 8:27 PM Views: 7 Comments: 0 eProps: 0 Read Comments Post a Comment Back to Your Xanga Site |
Monday, January 21, 2008
| On Thursday I got my offer from JPL. It's pretty good, but I asked for a few days to think about it. So, I've been thinking and I'm going to accept it. It's a technical job where I could learn a lot, I'd be making enough money to live decently and be able to pay off student loans, the benefits are good, and I like the area. I'm going to officially accept tomorrow. I've been looking at housing in the Pasadena area, and it's so expensive compared to what I'm used to! Most one-bedrooms are about $1500/month. Here my roommates and I rent a 2-bedroom that's almost double the square footage for about half the price... SWE regional conference is this weekend in Pasadena, so I'll be headed back there on Friday. I'm hoping to have a little time to drive around while I'm there, but we'll see. I guess there are 9 of us going so far, the best conference attendance we've ever had. Even better than the year that conference was in Phoenix! It's kind of weird, because the reason most of us go is the career fair. I won't need the career fair, though, because I have a job lined up... There are plenty of workshops that sound interesting that I can go to instead. I was thinking of going to the career fair anyway and getting information on available internships for the underclassmen, but almost our entire section is going. There will be 8 other people getting that info for them, so I might as well just go to the workshops. I guess the Pasadena conference center is right by the outdoor mall I went to while I was there. It's on the same street as the parking garage entrance. It'll be nice to sort of know where I'm going. Other than that, not much is going on. The first round of homework is due this week, so I've been trying to get all of that together. I have my Materials lab tomorrow, which I'm not particularly fond of. There's an odd number of people in the class and the teacher won't allow groups of three, so I'm the odd one out and have to do the entire lab myself without a partner. It's a pretty stupid way of doing things, we should at least rotate so that I'm not by myself every week, but on the other hand I was the second one finished last week, so I guess it's ok. We also voted on the project we'll be doing for Detail Design, the second semester of the capstone sequence. We'll be building a satellite on the air bearing and making it move using thrusters. So, it's basically the same project that my class did last year for Experimental Space Systems, except we'll be using less technical equipment and sending commands through a wireless router on the satellite. It's frustrating, because I really don't want to do the same project again. There will probably also be a lot of communications issues within the team. It's hard to work with your fellow classmates because there's no hierarchy. My class is really competitive, so there's this constant jockeying for position that's enough to drive a person crazy. It certainly makes working on projects stressful and altogether not very enjoyable. It's a class that we should be looking forward to, but honestly I'm really not. But, we voted, and I got outvoted so now I have to do this project. So, I'm going to try to grin and bear it, I guess I really have no other option. In a few months I'll be working for a real company making money and working on things I actually care about, so I'm trying to just get through. I asked to be on the team that facilitates the sending of commands and receiving of data. At least I'd find that somewhat interesting and I might be able to use some of my computer networking experience from my internship. Plus, the people who are more inclined to work on that sort of thing seem easier to get along with than the rest... The teacher picks the groups everybody is on in the end, so hopefully I'll get what I want... | |
Posted 1/21/2008 8:27 PM - 7 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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