usmc1978

OK, I'll give you a little bit of a break since it's hunting season and there is a lot to do, but it is true that school costs too dang much to slough it off.

On the tough love point, you're writing and grammar do need improvement. Using Microsoft Word and having someone proof read your work are both good, but the best way to learn good prose and grammar is to read, read, read. Not stuff like these posts, but books. Pick topics you like and read everything you can get your hands on. There are plenty of good books on hunting, shooting, fishing, the military, etc., all of which are likely up your alley.

usmc1978

P.S., a couple of quick war stories:

I took a constituional law class in school. We were assigned to write a paper on on one of the amendments. You can guess which one I chose. I went to my prof's office to discuss it and he had a Handgun Control Inc. poster on the wall that was about 3'x5'. He disagreed with most of my paper, but I got an A-.

I had a prof for a political science course, he was a county councilman. He wrote a semi-auto ban for the council to consider. I took his final exam on a Monday night. The public hearing on the bill was the next night. I got there early and was the first one to sign up to speak, because I had another final that night. When I spoke I blasted his legislation, politely and professionally, of course, then drove a half-hour to school wondering what I just did to my final grade. Got an A...

Pawildman

............bigtim.....Do you proofread any of your writings?? If you have proof read your posts on this forum and found them acceptable, you have a loooong way to go, son. If you HAVEN'T been proof reading, you best start real soon. My take on the situation as a whole is that you would just rather step over English and get it behind you. You seem to consider it as being relatively unimportant to your final goal. Wrong. If you can't communicate in an effective and intelligent mode, you will never achieve the success you desire.
You need to be able to read and write in both a socially and intellectually acceptable manner in this world. You need much more work..................

IndyHunter83

bigtim... people on here have already more or less said what I will now say. I've got a little saying that maybe you need to hear. It goes something like "How you carry yourself every day is how you will be remembered on the last day." Yes the weedout classes are hard because they demand more assignments from you but they're also building the base knowledge for your later classes. If you want to be successful at school then you need to take that passion that you have for hunting and for rifles and focus it on what you are studying. I understand what the first year course are like and that you have an easier time with auto cad than you may in math or english courses. However, when you get to your structural design courses to tell you whether or not the framing and truss work that you have designed will work, you'll need those basic skills of math and english to communicate how or why it will or won't work. To be blunt, your grammer stinks. I have read over a hundred posts by you in the past and all have been mediocre writing. When you type on this forum, why not treat it as an opportunity to practice those remedial skills. The other thing that I've read in your post is that you are or have missed assignment. Professors tend to take missing assignment very very seriously. When you get out of school, if you are trying to work in the construction industry then you will have to learn to make deadlines. That is what the business is about. Teachers also look at how you are dressed and where you put yourself in class seating and even whether or not you are taking notes as to whether you are someone that they should take seriously. These are things that you have to consider if you really want the A in a class. Reread some of the other guys' posts. I think you may find some valueble information in them.

bigcountry... I'm just wondering, what type of engineer are you?

bigpapa

O.K. so I'll be the realistic one in the crowd. Dude I partied my ass off in college. I lost all of my scholarships within the first year and was only put through by the grace of my father who didn't want me home. Did I miss a lot... yes. Did I learn a lot... yes. It took me 2 years to figure out that beer was not more important than knowledge. You're learning right now. Welcome to college. This is part of it. Finding out that you don't know everything and that mommy and daddy won't / can't bail you out all of the time. You're gonna play hell trying to bring up your GPA but that's another lesson you'll learn. Take your licks and learn your lessons but don't forget to enjoy the time you have there. I live about 5 minutes from the college I went to. There are times I drive by and still would like to go back. But that was a different time in my life just like 10 years from now you'll look back and see that this is a different time of your life. Would you do things differently in high school? Sure. Can you? Nope. Did you learn lessons? Sure. Just like your doing now.
Best of luck next semester.

BP

bigcountry

Started off with power engineering. It is my love. Money wasn't there. Went to Electrical Engineering (low frequency analog and digital), and for the past 13 years, optics engineer specializing FEC, Line Modulation and nonlinear light transmission. What type are you?

usmc1978

Thanks for a good laugh. That was me in the Corps...my fraternity.

homers brother

You're still at it? A white paper, particularly and engineering white paper is, without question, the most BORING document one could EVER read, and may be incomprehensible when its author(s) are better engineers than they are writers. I might also point out that engineers aren't the only professionals who use "white papers". A few formatting differences, but the purpose is identical. An Engineer might not know that, but a Program Manager would.

Take some of your own advice - stick to guns.

VAByrd - Engineers are rarely the most pleasant of people to work with (just one of the reasons I decided to do something else). But it sure can be interesting when you have a team comprised of different engineering disciplines working on the same project. Maybe a better word would be "entertaining"? Imagine throwing a cat and a rooster in a burlap bag and hanging it on the clothesline.

bigcountry

Oh, I stick to guns more than you ever will know or understand.

Yes, to the uneducated a white paper is the most boring document. After reading you do not hold a MS, I can see your perspective. White papers and scientific conferences only drives all the technology we have at this point. Without OSA OFC or IEEE conferences, you would not be able to post your thoughst on this page. I guarantee you the bandwidth you are burning with all your literary thoughts and insight you put out is running over a WDM system that yours truely has patents on and helped install and design.

I realize you don't understand what I am explaining, so I will end it with "Merry Christmas".

bigtim6656

I would agree there are alot of things to most seem boring or unneeded. When we got a designer to layout a septic system for us he used cad. When he came back I understood it rather easily as I had just finished a 16 week class on cad. Though the installer who was giving us a estimate said he need a few days because he would need to give the drawing to his friend to read it. Seem simple to me blue line is sewer pipe red was water. The big square thing was the tank. Though he had trouble with it.
I think to some english and writing papers come easy. That person could write a paper on how a car works but ask them to work on it. I could build a house from the ground up. I have worked on alot of homes and even flipped a few with my dad, but ask me to write a book on how to do it and I am screwed. I guess it is like someone who is a award winning piano player but cannot read sheet music.