Engineering Specialties, Andrew G.

Being an engineer is something that has interested me for a while, or more so the computer part of engineering.  I want to be a Computer Science major and if that isn’t in the engineering field then sorry but thats still what I want to do.  Playing around with computer parts either the programing or internal parts has been fun for me since I was little.  I like the idea of working with computer because It has always been easy and fun to me.  I think it helps a lot that I enjoy working with computers and it comes easily to me. The problem I’m going to have is if I have to explain to other people how to do very simple things with computers. it’s always been hard for me to do that.  I would need to learn how to get along with them better and work with them more.  

As for jobs in the real world any job that would be me helping to write programs would make me happy.  I don’t really care what company and there are so many people that are looking for programers that I think I would be ok for jobs. Working for a large company like apple or microsoft would be awesome because i would get to be part of a much larger system. The second best job I could get would be a network administrator. There are always companies that use computers and they would need someone to help set up a network so that they could share files and other information. I will have to look into what I want to do more, doing this writing has made me want to look around more for jobs that I would enjoy working in.

Edison Miracle of Light, Andrew G.

After seeing the movie “Edison Miracle of Light” I think that Edison knew a lot more then just how to invent things, he knew what to invent along with how to sell it.  He learned a huge amount about what people wanted to hear from working with different newspapers.  This helped him to be able to sell or show of his inventions to the public.  I was surprised to hear that after Edison installed the first full set up of lights in Grand Central other cities didn’t seem that interested in buying any of his lights and their power supplies.  The way I had always heard it everyone just loved the lights and within a short amount of time all the cities had them.  This is where I think Edison was a great business man, he set up a huge marketing campaign to get people to see what his lights could do.  

The amount of credit that Edison receives for creating the light bulb seems almost small once you know the amount of work that had to go into getting the light bulb to work.  I never thought of all the technology that went into getting the lights to work.  For him to create all the wiring and a generator to make all the lights work is an amazing feat. I think Edisons ability to keep behind his ideas when people think that he can’t do it helped him and hurt him at the same time.  It’s one of the main reasons he was able to create such great things but it stopped him once AC current came along.  If he would have bent and agreed that it was a better system then he would have been able to stay around longer and be more involved with the electricity.  

All in all the movie was good and I learned some things that I didn’t know about Edison before.  Some of his other inventions seem to get pushed back and I think they are almost more advanced then the light bulb alone.  His team also helped a huge amount in all of his creations, I think they should get a little bit more credit. Yes Edison was the main creator of all the ideas but it was almost just as much everyone at Menlo Park that made everything a reality.  He did do a great amount of good for our country.

Self Evaluation, Andrew G.

I would have to say that my best “hat” would have to be an artist.    It can be hard for me to figure out the initial idea out, but once I have something to work with I can do a lot with it.  I try to figure out any way there is to look at an idea.  Then I’ll work on the one that I think other people might have missed.  If what I do doesn’t exactly work then it’s easy for me to just alter it until it does what I want or works the right way. 

If there is an idea that I enjoy or want to know more about then I’ll try to figure it out the best I can.  I also enjoy trying to get others interested and involved with things I find to be interesting. I’ll follow the idea until I can figure it out. The problem I can have is when I follow something to much or for to long and it doesn’t go anywhere.  That is the warrior personality in me.

The explorer is another trait I can have trouble with at times.  Once I have a good grasp of an idea I can run with it and manipulate it, but coming up with that original idea can be hard for me.  Every so often I’ll get something great but it’s not often.

Judging myself or anyone else’s work can be another problem for me to do as well.  For some reason rating myself I always feel like someone else could do a better job because they get an outside perspective of whatever I’m working on.  When people ask questions like “tell me a little bit about yourself” or “how would you rate your work” it’s hard for me to answer.  Rating a singular person or their work is hard because if I have nothing to rate against then it feels like I’m going to easy or hard on them.

The hardest part out off all of these personalities is when to use what,  there are times when i’ll just follow something to much or just plow through a project when it would have been much better if I was to slow down and think things over more.  Another thing I tend to do is try to be to creative and spend to much time trying to be original when it would be better to be practical.  The best thing for me to do is step back every once in a while to make sure I’m going in the direction I should be.

Achievements, Andrew G.

The first large power grid is created in 1953 when seven states connect to form one grid. By connecting a large amount of power generating points together, it helps to prevent blackouts. If one of the power plants needed to go offline to be serviced or unexpectedly shuts down, then the other power plants on the grid would be able to up their power output and make up for the lost power plant. One of the other major benefits of having a grid is that all the power plants are able to work at full capacity and the power is sent where it needs to be.

France and England decided to connect both of their power grids to form one large system in 1961. This allows the two major countries to share power and help to support the others grid. The United states forms into 3 main grids during the 1990s. Forming a power grid helps to ensure that there is a constant or close to constant supply of power that is transported in an efficient way.  Without this it would be harder for people to develop new electronics, or use things like a desktop computer.  It might not be the biggest or the most notable thing to happen in the last century, but it has helped to create some of the greater inventions.

Andrew G Introduction

Hello to everyone, my name is Andrew Graham. I’m planning on majoring in computer science, with a chance that I might switch to computer engineering. I wanted to take an engineering class because ever since I was little taking things apart.  It would occasionally cause problems when there would be no pens in the house because I wanted to know what was inside them all. Trying to figure out how things work is fun to me, especially electronics.  I enjoy the programing side to electronics more then the inner workings of the parts they use. I think that knowing about both would be a good thing to do. That’s the main reason why I decided to take this class. (I also don’t think much of english so hopefully this class isn’t going to be as bad as most.)