Entry #6 Education

Dates: 7/1/11 - 7/5/11
Activities: DCD Meeting, HEC
Technical Information: Adobe software, Copy Machine, MS Word
Reflection: I recently went to a meeting with my supervisor, Daniel, and two of my coworkers, Jess and Kristy, about an upcoming data collection. Our team will travel to Alcoa, Tennessee to collect data on a diverging diamond interchange. A diverging diamond is a special type of interchange where traffic travels on the opposite side of the road for a small period of time to improve left lane movement. This type of interchange has been called the "golden ticket", but our Highways Group is trying to determine if the diverging diamond is all it's cracked up to be. Our team will be traveling to Alcoa to collect data such as how far the cars back up and if people get confused by this new layout. Although I will not be going to this data collection, it was cool learning about the procedures of how they will collect this information.

Lately I've also been working with Daniel in organizing HEC notes. ITRE teaches a class called Highway Engineering Concepts (HEC), and over the years there has been no set procedure on how to properly edit these notes. Subsequently, the hard copies and file copies are no longer the same, and my job is to make sure the hard copies and the files on the server match up. It's been really neat skimming through all of these notes and learning about engineering concepts before I'm even in college.

Because I've really enjoyed what I've been doing at work for the past month, I'm definitely interested in pursuing a career path that involves some type of engineering. Because this is truly a professional institute, most who work here have acquired at least a masters degree. Chris and Daniel have their professional engineering licence, and some, like Bastian, even have their PhD. Most who work here, at least in the highways group, went to college for civil engineering with a focus in transportation. Because NC State is a great engineering school, it is one of my top choices for colleges if I choose to pursue this type of path.