Noisy Mind
So, the thing that's most on my mind is the happenstance dancing with a star (didn't know who she was at the time), but I'm actually going to yammer on about something else.
PD III is actually a pretty worthwhile course, especially for the work expected out of us for it. Today we talked a bit about corporate cultures; how to figure out what they are, the various varieties, questions to ask, whatnot and so forth.
Our teacher brought up the example of "Gore" (of Goretex), a company that uses a very, very unstructed method. You don't have "bosses", you have "sponsors" and "mentors". Performance is reviewed by commitee, there aren't many hierarchies (presumable those that exist are "schedule appointment through secretary"), and overall seemed like a more anarchistic Google in a totally different field.
Now, common between both Google and Gore is the "personal project" approach to things, a veiwpoint I've been considering less and less valuable to me as a person. After all, I thought, I'm an engineeer - I solve problems, but I'm not good at thinking them up.
Side-tracking...
I've also been noticing an overall slow change to myself and my veiwpoint of the world - I've been thinking more and more mechanicistically, problem-design-solution... Theory doesn't interest me because I need it presented as "here's the problem we're trying to solve, and here's how we go about it". Granted, this ends up as a good thing with regards to Robotics (mostly) since I can really figure out a lot about the material by sitting there and thinking - I'm an engineer encountering this problem for the first time. How do I deal with it?
But, I don't know, seems off.
The realization I had was that I keep having this excited emotional response about the stories from places like Google and Gore, even tho I don't think I fit there... But if I get that emotional response, doesn't that mean something?
I think it does. I think it means I've been drifting more and more to the "technician" side of Engineering, when I very much started out at the "science" side of Engineering (Tesla's a good example of what I mean by that line). I need to get back there, and it won't happen quickly, but I think it will happen moderately easily if I keep at it, it'll just take some time to get the momentum shifted.
PD III is actually a pretty worthwhile course, especially for the work expected out of us for it. Today we talked a bit about corporate cultures; how to figure out what they are, the various varieties, questions to ask, whatnot and so forth.
Our teacher brought up the example of "Gore" (of Goretex), a company that uses a very, very unstructed method. You don't have "bosses", you have "sponsors" and "mentors". Performance is reviewed by commitee, there aren't many hierarchies (presumable those that exist are "schedule appointment through secretary"), and overall seemed like a more anarchistic Google in a totally different field.
Now, common between both Google and Gore is the "personal project" approach to things, a veiwpoint I've been considering less and less valuable to me as a person. After all, I thought, I'm an engineeer - I solve problems, but I'm not good at thinking them up.
Side-tracking...
I've also been noticing an overall slow change to myself and my veiwpoint of the world - I've been thinking more and more mechanicistically, problem-design-solution... Theory doesn't interest me because I need it presented as "here's the problem we're trying to solve, and here's how we go about it". Granted, this ends up as a good thing with regards to Robotics (mostly) since I can really figure out a lot about the material by sitting there and thinking - I'm an engineer encountering this problem for the first time. How do I deal with it?
But, I don't know, seems off.
The realization I had was that I keep having this excited emotional response about the stories from places like Google and Gore, even tho I don't think I fit there... But if I get that emotional response, doesn't that mean something?
I think it does. I think it means I've been drifting more and more to the "technician" side of Engineering, when I very much started out at the "science" side of Engineering (Tesla's a good example of what I mean by that line). I need to get back there, and it won't happen quickly, but I think it will happen moderately easily if I keep at it, it'll just take some time to get the momentum shifted.