Updatetastic

I'm about a month into grad school at THE Oregon State University, which means that I'm about a third of the way through my first quarter.  It's been pretty great so far.  My three classes in Lab Testing of Soils, Foundations, and Seismic Design have been enjoyable and I've been doing well in all three of them.  The thing that I like best about my classes so far is definitely the sparsity of assignments.  In both Lab Testing and Seismic Design, there are only about 4 or 5 assignments due throughout the quarter.  In Foundations, we have an assignment every week, and as long as they don't take 16 hours (like last week's assignment) it's really not too bad.

Also, as you might be able to ascertain from my post before last, I found some research with Ben Mason, who I think is a really cool guy.  He's also my professor for Lab Testing of Soils.  My thesis is going to be something along the lines of "Numerical Methods for Dynamic Soil-Structure Interaction of Multiple Building Systems."  Yes, it's a mouthful, but that's how most theses are. In English that translates roughly to "How soils in urban areas behave when the buildings on top of them start shaking in an earthquake."  Our goal is to try to get this research published in a technical journal and probably present it at a conference as well.  In the words of Ben himself, at the end I should basically be able to staple these two documents together and submit it as a thesis, we'll see how all of that goes.

I'm not starting this research right away.  In December Ben will give me some literature to review, and we'll actually begin with the research in about April or May of next year.  The research will really begin in earnest during the summer, when we don't have much else going on.

I also just got my own desk in the office for geotechnical engineering grad students. It's pretty awesome.

And my Alma Mater plays my new substitute Alma Mater in football tomorrow.  Just in case you haven't heard, I'll be wearing blue and will be sitting in the BYU fan section.  Prediction:

BYU - 30, Oregon State -21