Washington, DC
The District....so, the past to times I've been I got to know myself better. The latter was senior year in high school when I did one of those "meet the government" programs for a week. I got to learn about my political beliefs and I got to come face to face with "crazy" Massachusetts Liberals. ...Good times....
Anyway, this time I got to discover my niche in the transportation engineering field through the TRB conference. TRB is the Transportation Research Board of the National Acadiemes (apparently, there are national academies). Anyway, the conference is held each year at the beginning of January. The main events are sessions and poster sessions in which all types of research related to transportation is presented. Topics like commuter rail, pavement, bridges, subways, bus systems, evacuation, etc etc. It's not small either. There are like 100,000 people that show up for this thing and it has to be split between 3 big hotels to fit all the events going on. Oh, and you get like a 300 page book of all the crap that is going on when you check into the conference...it's pretty serious. Alright, so my niche, well I believe that's going to be planning and transit. Transit...as in mass transit. Then planning, in simple terms it's where you plan modes of transportation (esp. highways) around the number of trips generated from anyone area to another.
Another revelation that comes to me is that I would really really like to go for my masters, but there are a few things about that. It seems that if I want to have a really "cutting-edge" thesis on hurricane evacuation I'll need to stay at LSU, but if I'd rather be learning about transit and other things and not worry about the thesis, I need to go to UT Austin... We're talking a year down the road here. I need to take the GRE very soon.
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In an unrelated story, I delegate Tuesday as my "tourist" day. I used my fancy camera to take all kinds of cool shots of things you may recognize. None of the grad students wanted to go be a tourist (by only company on the trip, besides the sporadic in and outs of my professor, Dr. Wolshon...he's a pretty big deal in hurricane evacuation research...seriously, type in into google) so I decided to go it solo.
The day started after a fun ride on the Metro. I got off sorta near the Washington monument and went up that. I walked around the reflecting pool in the national mall and saw: WWII memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, Korean War Memorial, and Honest Abe [Memorial]. Then I went to one of the Smithsonians and saw the Hope Diamond, walked across the street to the National Archives to see the Constitution and declaration of independence (I stole the latter and pursued a National Treasure style hunt). Grabbed lunch at Union Station, then ran over to the Capitol for a little tour. Then, on my way back to the hotel, I stopped by the White House, but the big O's people where lining the street with benches like it was Mardi Gras and you couldn't see it really well, pesky inaugurations. So, who thinks they can keep up with me on my next vacation? Seriously, the lack of any lines at all of these places was very helpful. Either there was no one in DC that day or it was too cold for people to be doing anything...it was like 38-40F all day.
I guess you could say I really enjoyed the trip. I got to visit one of the coolest cities ever, plus I'm a little closer to deciding on a grad school...you know, Berkley is always an option...
Anyway, this time I got to discover my niche in the transportation engineering field through the TRB conference. TRB is the Transportation Research Board of the National Acadiemes (apparently, there are national academies). Anyway, the conference is held each year at the beginning of January. The main events are sessions and poster sessions in which all types of research related to transportation is presented. Topics like commuter rail, pavement, bridges, subways, bus systems, evacuation, etc etc. It's not small either. There are like 100,000 people that show up for this thing and it has to be split between 3 big hotels to fit all the events going on. Oh, and you get like a 300 page book of all the crap that is going on when you check into the conference...it's pretty serious. Alright, so my niche, well I believe that's going to be planning and transit. Transit...as in mass transit. Then planning, in simple terms it's where you plan modes of transportation (esp. highways) around the number of trips generated from anyone area to another.
Another revelation that comes to me is that I would really really like to go for my masters, but there are a few things about that. It seems that if I want to have a really "cutting-edge" thesis on hurricane evacuation I'll need to stay at LSU, but if I'd rather be learning about transit and other things and not worry about the thesis, I need to go to UT Austin... We're talking a year down the road here. I need to take the GRE very soon.
****
In an unrelated story, I delegate Tuesday as my "tourist" day. I used my fancy camera to take all kinds of cool shots of things you may recognize. None of the grad students wanted to go be a tourist (by only company on the trip, besides the sporadic in and outs of my professor, Dr. Wolshon...he's a pretty big deal in hurricane evacuation research...seriously, type in into google) so I decided to go it solo.
The day started after a fun ride on the Metro. I got off sorta near the Washington monument and went up that. I walked around the reflecting pool in the national mall and saw: WWII memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, Korean War Memorial, and Honest Abe [Memorial]. Then I went to one of the Smithsonians and saw the Hope Diamond, walked across the street to the National Archives to see the Constitution and declaration of independence (I stole the latter and pursued a National Treasure style hunt). Grabbed lunch at Union Station, then ran over to the Capitol for a little tour. Then, on my way back to the hotel, I stopped by the White House, but the big O's people where lining the street with benches like it was Mardi Gras and you couldn't see it really well, pesky inaugurations. So, who thinks they can keep up with me on my next vacation? Seriously, the lack of any lines at all of these places was very helpful. Either there was no one in DC that day or it was too cold for people to be doing anything...it was like 38-40F all day.
I guess you could say I really enjoyed the trip. I got to visit one of the coolest cities ever, plus I'm a little closer to deciding on a grad school...you know, Berkley is always an option...