Winter has arrived in Michigan. It rained all day Tuesday, and then dropped 30° overnight. Wednesday and today we had a little bit of snow.
Our UAV is coming along quite well. Here is what the latest version looks like:
I have selected the classes I want to register for for the next semester. I will be taking the second Aero Lab course, in which I believe we work on projects of use to actual companies. I will also be taking a course on hypersonic flow; an aerospace seminar course where they have industry people come in and talk; a math course about solving boundary value problems for partial differential equations; and a directed study course where I will be working under the guidance of a professor on a project of his, which in this case involves designing a very small solar-powered airplane. So that should be fun.
Well, I am now applying to grad schools. I am enrolled in a program here at Michigan which would allow me to get my Master's in two semesters because I can double-count classes for both my undergrad and graduate degrees, whereas it would likely take three at any other college. But financing is also an important issue, of course... Anyway, here are a couple paragraphs based on the essays I'm writing for admissions.
I have been interested in Aerospace Engineering from a young age, when I started folding and flying paper airplanes, experimenting with them to determine what made them fly in different ways. I have pursued that interest throughout high school and college, taking many math and physics courses, which I find enjoyable and interesting. This past summer I had an internship with The Boeing Company developing software for satellite ground control operations. This is not quite what I went to college to learn how to do, but it provided me with a view into how engineering works in the real world, and I enjoyed the experience immensely. Although many of my colleagues feel burned out after achieving a Bachelor's degree, I feel that I have not really learned all that much, and I wish to further my education with a Master's degree. I believe that the my studies toward a Master's degree will provide me with a deeper, more thorough understanding of the aerodynamic principles which I hope to apply in my career.
My career goal is to work on advanced aerodynamic design for a defense industry contractor. Although I find most aspects of technology fascinating, especially those more closely related to the field of Aerospace Engineering, it is not possible for one person to be a master of every area. Consequently, I have chosen aerodynamic design as the area I would like to pursue. I have always been entranced by the beautiful designs of modern military aircraft, and I would like to contribute to this. It has been said more than once that innovation has been maximized, and there is nothing left to do but put the pieces together. However, I believe that there is still much to be conceived and developed in the aerospace industry. Now that unmanned vehicles are becoming practical, largely due to advances in computational ability, they provide tremendous opportunities for innovation and advancement, freed from the constraints of human physiology. I would like to be a part of this advancement, studying and developing new technologies and applying them to drive the aerospace industry ever onward, keeping on the cutting edge of science.
