I work in the structural section editing drawings, writing bridge inspection reports, doing quantity take-offs and whatever else they need me to do. I feel like the experience I've received while working at the Corps has really paid off by helping me understand early in my educational career what civil engineering is all about.

The first is a foundation engineering project. In this project a group of 5 students and myself are faced with the task of designing a set of foundations for a proposed building development.

The second is another group project involving the design of a water treatment facility. We are given a test sample of water from our mock source and have the assignment of cleaning the water in order to meet EPA standards.

The final project is one that I have a lot of interest in and is in computer aided structural design. For this project, one other student and myself are given a generic plan for a building. It is then our job to input the structure into software which aids in the actual design of the structural members. This is something that I hope to do once I graduate so the experience I am gaining through this project is priceless.

In tonight's intramural game we faced the other undefeated team in our league and took our first loss of the season. Even though the game didn't go our way, it was still a blast to be able to compete with some of my friends through intramurals. Hopefully our luck changes next week.

The rest of the week was defined by my Senior Design project. Our project goal is to design a subdivision. This includes everything from surveying the property to designing water and sewer lines. Friday our third phase was due, including cut and fill calculations, grading and road design. My partners and I spent approximately 25 hours working on our project and attended all of our classes, completed other homework and studied for midterms.

Needless to say, I was happy to go home this weekend and relax. The weekend was great. I killed my second coyote!

The outing was a big commitment and took a significant portion of my time over the past couple of weeks, but the satisfaction of knowing you were part of something successful made it worth it. My team ended up finishing close to dead last but the outing was still a lot of fun.

I would highly suggest for prospective students to become involved with their respective student organizations within the college of engineering. Every organization has events such as this one where you can network with alumni in a social setting.

Yesterday, Dr. Robe, the founder of the Robe Leadership Institute, came and spoke to us about the use of effective questions and how they can lead to making effective decisions. My advice to incoming students is to get involved from day one so that you will have the opportunity to take advantage of these kinds of opportunities.