Californication meets Tranpacificism

Hidy ho!
 Well, so I spent several a minute last semester, and during the past summer semester in México, debating whether I was better off being an Environmental Science (EnvS) major, or if I would be better off switching to Environmental Resources Engineering (ERE), both degree programs here at Humboldt State University (HSU). Kendra Cecil and Scott Harris both mentioned to me that it’d be a LOT of classes if I switched to ERE, which I had an idea about when the chair of the ERE Dept, Beth Eschenbach, first gave me the graduation requirements list, days before I had even started taking classes at HSU! And I looked up that same sheet again the first week of the Fall’05 semester, and Scott ended up being oh-so-right, I was looking at, at LEAST, 6 more semesters, possibly 8 if I didn’t take a heavy load each and every semester. 4 more years?! That’s like a full degree, so maybe, I think, uhh.. no! I have to say, that indicates that it’s not a very balanced degree program!! I figured I’d been in school long enough, and chalked up enough units that it wouldn’t be so bad, but how wrong I was. So despite the recommendation from Lonny Grafman (and Beth (And Dustin Poppendieck)) that I should switch to ERE, partially because I’m supposedly “smart enough,” I think I’ll have to decline this go-round in life! Maybe next round. That extended time thinking, pondering, did have bases.
I want to be effective in whatever job I end up going into, and if a degree in ERE would cause that, it was something I had to think more about. Maybe a more solid curriculum, the stamp of approval that I would get, from being a “certified Engineer,” would be worth a lot.
But I really liked my classes. (Not only the ones in the past at DeAnza College) Spring’05 was a really nice, _VERY_ interesting semester! I don’t think I’d want to trade those “social science” classes for anything! They’re worthwhile, and they’re helping me grow. Maybe Engineering provides growth, but .. aye, it seems so harsh of a process and a thing.
Plus, in taking that Engineering 115, wherein we talked about WasteWater treatment, and visited the Arcata Marsh, a natural WWTP, I started to think. I had misheared/understood the tour guide, thinking that he said that our poo gets sorted out by the Archimedes Screw and landfilled, which made me sad. So I was still wasting water in my many times a day of pooing, and contributing to landfills! Uh!
((continued..))

And so began my deep interest in WasteWater. I took this (faulty) knowledge of the Marsh, a better system that seemed still not good enough, and came up with another idea. When I was last taking EnvS classes at DeAnza, particularly my Technology and the Environment class, was during the great California “Energy Crisis.” One of the many solutions that came out of this “crisis” was the notion of Decentralized production of energy. Then, rather than relying solely on the grid, and on Power Plants working properly/effectively/efficiently, people would take the matter of energy production into their own hands. For example, solar cells or windmills on roofs, Fuel cells at your home/office, etc. Make your own energy, what you need, and do it clean. I adopted this idea, for what I thought was a new idea, and I call it “Decentralizing the Poo Structure,” which will be the topic of many of my future projects for the rest of my Undergraduate career. This would have the wastes we generate as part of our day-to-day lives being taken care of locally. Where its produced, ideally in one’s own backyard, as appropriate.
This interest in wastewater continued during my time in Mexico, where we took an even greater interest in Waste Water. This was kind of weird, considering that, while we were taking Engineering classes technically, they were Appropriate Technology classes, and I don’t know that we necessarily hit the “AT” parts of the WasteWater. Which was ironic, and in ways weird.. But still, VERY cool stuff. You can see a couple of pictures of black water
(a river of it! ) in our photo gallery. I have some more in my own photo gallery, but that has yet to be sorted out! )
So, all the while I was learning about wastewater, and was becoming fascinated by it, and even more by the prospect of a decentralized system that the world could use, to take care of problems, such as the above image, as well as our diminishing water resources. However, as I thought more about working in the field of Wastewater, I realized that it might be hard for me to be taken seriously as an EnvSci major, whereas an Engineer would have a lot of “street cred,” as it were. So maybe that’s what I needed to be, I continued to think. But, as aforementioned, I decided that the time in school was probably not worth it. Plus, I could complete my undergrad and do a Masters Degree in Wastewater in the same amount of time! (Give or take) Which, may end up being what I do, time will tell.
What did I decide instead? Sorry about all the temporal jumps! But back to the beginning of Fall semester, 2005. I didn’t get into AT as much as I had hoped, no passion/deep interest/whatever in it, so I decided that I might as well change my concentration (under the Technology Option of my major). From AT, to Water Quality. Oh yes, here we are. Well, that’s where I’m at now, at least! I would have been almost halfway done with my AT concentration if I stuck with it, but now I have to start over, and have 20 units to go to finish my concentration (rather than ~12, after the 8 units this summer). Which is adding time to graduation, so now we’re looking at Spring of 2007 instead of Fall. Hopefully I can stick to that, graduating in the Spring, right before the ceremony, is the option I’d prefer. As well as graduating earlier being better than later. Well, so that’s enough about all that for now, hasta luego! -@

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