Rose-Hulman

I had the neat experience this week of giving some lectures at Rose-Hulman. There are 8 sections of ES202 that combine into 4 sections for a two-hour lab. ES202 is the "Introduction to Thermodynamics and Fluids" class for sophomores at Rose. It's made up of 200+ students, mostly mechanical engineers, but also some computer engineers, electrical engineers, and biomedical engineers. I got to give a lecture during the lab period to three of the four groups. Some of the students during the other lab period came to a different lab time, so I almost had 200 students all together.

I spoke to the students about Rolls-Royce and what we do. I introduced them to jet engines, the different parts of the engine, and how those parts work together to create power for different types of situations. Then I described how we go about designing a new engine and gave them some examples of what I have seen on the military side of things. I showed them some videos and some really neat pictures of upcoming technology like the Joint Strike Fighter, V22 Osprey, and Predator drone. Basically, I just gave them an overview of the jet engine and the engineering concepts and methods that go into it.

The students had a great time. The professors told me that they had students come to their office after the sessions to say how much they liked it. That made me feel good. I could tell they were interested, because they paid attention and asked some really good questions, but it's nice to hear that they weren't just faking it. I tend to get pretty excited about this kind of stuff, so I think my enthusiasm probably rubbed off on them a little bit.

I'll tell you what, doing stuff like this makes me realize how much I want to be a professor someday. I can't wait to get a PhD and go back to some engineering college. Rose-Hulman would be a great choice, too. On the other hand, I also realized how valuable real-world experience is when you're presenting this kind of thing. The students were really interested to hear about what the engineering world is really like. Having experience gives you a certain amount of credibility to work with.

I had some professors ask me to do similar things for other classes, like Propulsion Systems, so hopefully I'll get the chance to do this again. Now all I need to do is fanagle a speaking fee out of them. :^) Just kidding!