Just got back from NA 416. What a waste! Three contact hours a week, plus homework and exam prep, totalling maybe 100 hours, and I have not learned a freakin' thing. That this course is an NA offering is a farce, nevermind trumpeting in the announcement that it "is very relevant to ship, offshore, and aerospace structures." In point of fact it is a math class serenading as an engineering course, but with no relevance to the practicing engineer. I don't doubt that what he's scribbling on the board at breakneck speed is relevant and useful, it just isn't relevant and useful to a past (and future?) naval architect. The thing is, I worked in a structures department for a major United States shipyard doing exactly the things he's describing, and they aren't treated this way. When EB needs to move a submarine or find out how highly loaded a plate is, they don't whip out their differential equations books and retire the nerdery with their calculators! Instead, they sit down and objectively look at the situation in a practical and thorough way, supported by first principles calculations. Then, if they conclude an issue may arise, FEA is done with supporting analysis. The output of 416 is the stuff that the code for FEA is written with, not anything a person who knows what a ship should look like would ever touch. To add insult to injury, I asked very early on (day 1) if this course was an applications-based course or if I should take my learning elsewhere and the response came 'oh yes we are all about the applications of our knowledge here!' Baaaahhh! Wasted time, wasted effort, wasted stress, wasted opportunity.

The day's other developments are considerably less maddening: work done, tons of fun. Hockey at the Joe, go team go. Scholarship offered, graduation deferred. Walk in December, if I remember. Tug boat designed, structural calcs declined. In your eye, NA416.