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I see that a few of you on the forums have wondered where I went. I would like to now address that. Because the transistion was a pretty big step for me.
To quote one of my favorite movies:
[On the phone]
Ed Rooney: Are you also aware, Mrs. Bueller, that Ferris does not have what we consider to be an exemplary attendance record?
Katie Bueller: I don't understand.
Ed Rooney: He has missed an unacceptable number of school days. In the opinion of this educator, Ferris is not taking his academic growth seriously. Now I've spent my morning examining his records. If Ferris thinks that he can just coast through this month and still graduate, he is sorely mistaken. I have no reservations whatsoever about holding him back another year.
Katie Bueller: This is all news to me.
Ed Rooney: It usually is. So far this semester he has been absent nine times.
Katie Bueller: Nine times?
Ed Rooney: Nine times.
Katie Bueller: I don't remember him being sick nine times.
Ed Rooney: That's probably because he wasn't sick. He was skipping school. Wake up and smell the coffee, Mrs. Bueller. It's a fool's paradise. He is just leading you down the primrose path.
Katie Bueller: I can't believe it.
Ed Rooney: I've got it right here in front of me. He has missed nine days...
[His computer screen begins counting down from nine to two. Ferris is at home looking at the same screen]
Ferris: I asked for a car, I got a computer. How's that for being born under a bad sign?
The very last line is one that I think about a lot. When I was in high school, I got a computer for a car. And I spent allllll of my energy learning as much as I could about computers. Which led me to my fascination with the linux operating system. When I was in highschool I was a C student. I never focused on class, and I always focused on what I wanted to focus on, which was computers.
But then I got a car.......
I got my car prior to entering my freshman year of college. I was immediately fascinated. All the tinkering that I had done with computers could also be done with engines to increase vehicle performance. I was immediately hooked and fascinated. I was so hooked, that I couldn't focus on my school work, and I ended up dropping out of school because I wasn't learning about what I wanted to learn about. Oh, and my intended major is the same as it's always been, mechanical engineering.
Freshman year of college for me was Fall 2003 - Spring 2004 at USC-Upstate. I left before they asked me to leave, and I earned a 0.875 GPA. People always think that I was partying. I didn't really party a whole lot, I instead was distracted with linux and cars.
I moved back home and took some courses at midlands technical college (A local 2 year community college). This went on and off for some time. Beginning in Fall of 2004 - till Fall 2007. I went back in forth between full time and part time student. During this time I was working really crappy jobs. I always had the intentions of going back to finish my degree, and I knew that I wouldn't be satisfied until I did.
I worked several jobs during this period:
* shop assistant - cutting metal, fixing water pumps, sometimes welding, etc.
* delivering pizza
* welding on 18 wheelers - (I had taken 2 years of welding in highschool)
* Teradata - It was a tech support job that my brother helped me get, I got it because of my linux experience. I quickly realized that It wasn't for me.
* NCR - I did technical support and hated it. This was my job breaking point that helped feed my urge to go back to school.
Those are the job situations that most tend to focus on. Most think that that is the biggest reason to me deciding to come back to school. However it is not.
As I mentioned previously, my goal was always, to learn as much as I possibly could about vehicle performance. During this period between 2004-2007 I learned a lot about engines and transmissions. I got a lot of hands on experience in vehicle performance. I was involved with the forums, etc. This was good in a lot of ways however....
The car tuning scene is not a pure scene. What I mean is, it is mostly driven by money. Who has the fastest car? The person/team with the most money. It is not until you get wayyyy up in the tuning scene where research and development are the largest contributers to the build.
Here's an example. I went to a car meet one time in charlotte. There were a lot of vehicles there. One of the vehicles that I saw was an old civic that this kid was working on. It was a 3rd generation civic (1984-1987) and it originally came with a carb'd engine. The kid had converted it to EFI using the megasquirt DIY ECU platform. He had done a lot of other things with the engine that were really neat as well. His engine however was not a powerhouse, it probably would have only put down 115hp. I could tell that the kid was driven by his genuine interest in learning about how the vehicle operated, rather than getting caught up in the rat race of trying to be the fastest. I probably was one of the few people there that paid attention to his car, and was really impressed by his build. Shortly after, a hoodlum pulled up in this civic that he had "built" He bought all these fancy parts and bolted them on. Very little research, learning going on, and a whole lot of money spending. Naturally everyone flooded around the vehicle and was fascinated by the 600hp that the thing probably put down. This is an excellent depiction of the focus of the car scene of typical young males between the ages of 17-30.
After being in this environment, I knew that there had to be something else out there. I was running out of topics to learn about online, and I was running out of people to talk to. I then began looking at books. I got a few books and I knew that they were the next resource that I would need to gather my information from to fuel my passion. However, what I quickly realized was that the audience of these books were people that had completed many of the courses that are found in a mechanical engineering curriculum. Crap, 4 years later and I'm back to square one. This was the point where it really hit me, and where I felt the urge to go back. It was not because of getting a better job, it was because I knew that it would help satisfy my lust for knowledge.
I decided to quit my job at NCR and I signed up for 16 hours of courses at midlands tech. Calculus 1, Chemistry 1, Drafting, a computer math course, intro to welding (I missed welding). When I first got my calculus book, I flipped through it. One of the first example problems involved using calculus for aerodynamics of some wind tunnel that nascar used for performance tuning. I knew that I was in the right place. Full time started in the Spring of 2008, and I have not stopped since. I completed nearly every course that counted towards the first two years of a 4 year mechanical engineering (M.E.) degree. I ran out of courses to take at the technical college and I transferred to a 4 year university.
In choosing universities, I needed one that offered a degree in mechanical engineering, and I needed one that was in-state. This left me with USC or Clemson. My freshman year was at a USC satellite school, which counts as USC. This was the school that I had 'earned' a 0.875 GPA. Despite the fact that I had a 3.3 GPA at midlands tech, with over 50 hours of tough engineering courses, USC didn't want to accept me. This left Clemson, I applied, got accepted and now I'm here.
========================================
I do miss the car tuning scene. I have not "given up" on cars or abandoned the car scene. If anything I'm progressing forward more than I was before. However I am learning the fundamentals now. By doing this, when I read those advanced books, I will be able to understand them, and use them to make my next build that much greater.
I consider this step to be the next step of my next upcoming build, whatever it may be. I don't know yet. I am still in the mindset of taking pictures of some of the steps along the way, and that is what this is:
To quote one of my favorite movies:
[On the phone]
Ed Rooney: Are you also aware, Mrs. Bueller, that Ferris does not have what we consider to be an exemplary attendance record?
Katie Bueller: I don't understand.
Ed Rooney: He has missed an unacceptable number of school days. In the opinion of this educator, Ferris is not taking his academic growth seriously. Now I've spent my morning examining his records. If Ferris thinks that he can just coast through this month and still graduate, he is sorely mistaken. I have no reservations whatsoever about holding him back another year.
Katie Bueller: This is all news to me.
Ed Rooney: It usually is. So far this semester he has been absent nine times.
Katie Bueller: Nine times?
Ed Rooney: Nine times.
Katie Bueller: I don't remember him being sick nine times.
Ed Rooney: That's probably because he wasn't sick. He was skipping school. Wake up and smell the coffee, Mrs. Bueller. It's a fool's paradise. He is just leading you down the primrose path.
Katie Bueller: I can't believe it.
Ed Rooney: I've got it right here in front of me. He has missed nine days...
[His computer screen begins counting down from nine to two. Ferris is at home looking at the same screen]
Ferris: I asked for a car, I got a computer. How's that for being born under a bad sign?
The very last line is one that I think about a lot. When I was in high school, I got a computer for a car. And I spent allllll of my energy learning as much as I could about computers. Which led me to my fascination with the linux operating system. When I was in highschool I was a C student. I never focused on class, and I always focused on what I wanted to focus on, which was computers.
But then I got a car.......
I got my car prior to entering my freshman year of college. I was immediately fascinated. All the tinkering that I had done with computers could also be done with engines to increase vehicle performance. I was immediately hooked and fascinated. I was so hooked, that I couldn't focus on my school work, and I ended up dropping out of school because I wasn't learning about what I wanted to learn about. Oh, and my intended major is the same as it's always been, mechanical engineering.
Freshman year of college for me was Fall 2003 - Spring 2004 at USC-Upstate. I left before they asked me to leave, and I earned a 0.875 GPA. People always think that I was partying. I didn't really party a whole lot, I instead was distracted with linux and cars.
I moved back home and took some courses at midlands technical college (A local 2 year community college). This went on and off for some time. Beginning in Fall of 2004 - till Fall 2007. I went back in forth between full time and part time student. During this time I was working really crappy jobs. I always had the intentions of going back to finish my degree, and I knew that I wouldn't be satisfied until I did.
I worked several jobs during this period:
* shop assistant - cutting metal, fixing water pumps, sometimes welding, etc.
* delivering pizza
* welding on 18 wheelers - (I had taken 2 years of welding in highschool)
* Teradata - It was a tech support job that my brother helped me get, I got it because of my linux experience. I quickly realized that It wasn't for me.
* NCR - I did technical support and hated it. This was my job breaking point that helped feed my urge to go back to school.
Those are the job situations that most tend to focus on. Most think that that is the biggest reason to me deciding to come back to school. However it is not.
As I mentioned previously, my goal was always, to learn as much as I possibly could about vehicle performance. During this period between 2004-2007 I learned a lot about engines and transmissions. I got a lot of hands on experience in vehicle performance. I was involved with the forums, etc. This was good in a lot of ways however....
The car tuning scene is not a pure scene. What I mean is, it is mostly driven by money. Who has the fastest car? The person/team with the most money. It is not until you get wayyyy up in the tuning scene where research and development are the largest contributers to the build.
Here's an example. I went to a car meet one time in charlotte. There were a lot of vehicles there. One of the vehicles that I saw was an old civic that this kid was working on. It was a 3rd generation civic (1984-1987) and it originally came with a carb'd engine. The kid had converted it to EFI using the megasquirt DIY ECU platform. He had done a lot of other things with the engine that were really neat as well. His engine however was not a powerhouse, it probably would have only put down 115hp. I could tell that the kid was driven by his genuine interest in learning about how the vehicle operated, rather than getting caught up in the rat race of trying to be the fastest. I probably was one of the few people there that paid attention to his car, and was really impressed by his build. Shortly after, a hoodlum pulled up in this civic that he had "built" He bought all these fancy parts and bolted them on. Very little research, learning going on, and a whole lot of money spending. Naturally everyone flooded around the vehicle and was fascinated by the 600hp that the thing probably put down. This is an excellent depiction of the focus of the car scene of typical young males between the ages of 17-30.
After being in this environment, I knew that there had to be something else out there. I was running out of topics to learn about online, and I was running out of people to talk to. I then began looking at books. I got a few books and I knew that they were the next resource that I would need to gather my information from to fuel my passion. However, what I quickly realized was that the audience of these books were people that had completed many of the courses that are found in a mechanical engineering curriculum. Crap, 4 years later and I'm back to square one. This was the point where it really hit me, and where I felt the urge to go back. It was not because of getting a better job, it was because I knew that it would help satisfy my lust for knowledge.
I decided to quit my job at NCR and I signed up for 16 hours of courses at midlands tech. Calculus 1, Chemistry 1, Drafting, a computer math course, intro to welding (I missed welding). When I first got my calculus book, I flipped through it. One of the first example problems involved using calculus for aerodynamics of some wind tunnel that nascar used for performance tuning. I knew that I was in the right place. Full time started in the Spring of 2008, and I have not stopped since. I completed nearly every course that counted towards the first two years of a 4 year mechanical engineering (M.E.) degree. I ran out of courses to take at the technical college and I transferred to a 4 year university.
In choosing universities, I needed one that offered a degree in mechanical engineering, and I needed one that was in-state. This left me with USC or Clemson. My freshman year was at a USC satellite school, which counts as USC. This was the school that I had 'earned' a 0.875 GPA. Despite the fact that I had a 3.3 GPA at midlands tech, with over 50 hours of tough engineering courses, USC didn't want to accept me. This left Clemson, I applied, got accepted and now I'm here.
========================================
I do miss the car tuning scene. I have not "given up" on cars or abandoned the car scene. If anything I'm progressing forward more than I was before. However I am learning the fundamentals now. By doing this, when I read those advanced books, I will be able to understand them, and use them to make my next build that much greater.
I consider this step to be the next step of my next upcoming build, whatever it may be. I don't know yet. I am still in the mindset of taking pictures of some of the steps along the way, and that is what this is:
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