Aside from being in July in Pittsburgh where it can be very hot and humid (three rivers) it was indeed Great Fun. Especially so for me having gone to school right next door to the race course, which is arranged on the public roads through Shenley Park. My last school year there I had my first coupe and so, I can say I have driven (should we say hooned??) those roads. So it was also a bit of a homecoming.
@El Frazoo posted:Especially so for me having gone to school right next door to the race course, which is arranged on the public roads through Shenley Park.
CMU?
Mr Pickett: Yes and no -- It was, and in some ways still is, Carnegie Institute of Technology at that time. Do you know the area?
@El Frazoo posted:Mr Pickett: Yes and no -- It was, and in some ways still is, Carnegie Institute of Technology at that time. Do you know the area?
Our son took a double major in computer engineering and computer science. Part of my retirement money went to Pittsburgh (we got our money's worth).
What years for your son? I have a grandson graduating from ASU/Barrett in May in CS, and he might be looking at CMU CS grad school. Heis interested to know how it all goes there and what his options might be. When I was there (Mechanical Engineering), there was no Dept of CS, and they had just acquired the first mainframe computer ever made (so it seemed) and were not real sure how to use it.
@El Frazoo posted:What years for your son? I have a grandson graduating from ASU/Barrett in May in CS, and he might be looking at CMU CS grad school. Heis interested to know how it all goes there and what his options might be. When I was there (Mechanical Engineering), there was no Dept of CS, and they had just acquired the first mainframe computer ever made (so it seemed) and were not real sure how to use it.
David graduated in 2007. At that time CMU was the top ranked computer science program in the country, but I haven't followed it closely since then. I know they've been kicking butt in the robotics program.
Funny story, David was a bit of a slacker and didn't get into the CS school as a freshman. He did get the Microsoft internship though, much to the chagrin of the CS students. He kept that internship and parlayed it into a position on the Windows 7 team after graduation.
He continued on taking the CS courses and reapplying to be a CS school student every year, and being turned down, of course.
His senior year, he goes into his annual meeting with the CS faculty member in charge of admissions and pleads his case once more. The professor says, you would need to have taken computer algorithms, security, etc. and David says 'Yes, took those sophomore and junior years."
He says you'll need to the computer operating systems course (the toughest one) and David says "I'm the TA for that course this year."
The professor says "Mr. Pickett, you leave me no option, you are now a member of the school of computer science."
Great things followed...
Well good for him. If one wanted to get into the CMU CS graduate school today, what does that take, I wonder.
@El Frazoo posted:Well good for him. If one wanted to get into the CMU CS graduate school today, what does that take, I wonder.
I'd look into the background of the faculty, try to get a sense of what types of research they are doing, and see if he finds any profs that he'd like to help. I'd be prepared to share what I could bring to the table and where I'd like to go after graduation.
For example, a prof that has a large grant on generalized AI may have a need for grad students to help with the work. I'd contact the ones who might have resources (grants & contracts), express interest, and ask for help in getting into the program.
Another method I'd I'd use is to email/call/visit the faculty member currently in charge of admissions to the CS graduate program (on the website). I'd express my interest and ask if what the next best steps would be. They would probably know who's got grants in the works and who would need help. It's a lot like applying for a job.
Few faculty members like just to teach, so expressing a willingness to to take on some of that load as well as doing work on grants and contracts helps.
The school itself is interested in grad students who will go on to bring distinction to the school as scholars in the field. A few schools also prepare graduates to work in startups or tech corporations, but mostly they are looking for people who can bring the science forward with innovative thought and the ability to go out and find funding for the work.
It's a different world than your normal undergrad experience, but there are some people doing really cool work who are looking for grad students to help them out.
One of our twins just got his BS in CS from the University of Florida. He starts work at Amazon in Seattle in January on one of the AWS teams.
He won one of the 100 Future Engineers scholarships from Amazon and started as a sophomore as he had over 45 units of college credit coming out of high school.
That scholarship alone paid for his education, and he interned for Amazon each summer until graduation. He got several more scholarships and banked that money along with the state Bright Futures Scholarship.
I have asked for a loan from him.
His brother did pretty much the same thing only in humanities, also amassing some 40 units of college credit before starting and just graduated from FSU (damn the NCAA college football championship committee) with his BA in English (Writing and Media). He will probably teach.
They got the willpower and the smarts from their mother.
I provided some discipline and encouragement along the way.
We are blessed.
@Michael Pickett posted:I'd look into the background of the faculty, try to get a sense of what types of research they are doing, and see if he finds any profs that he'd like to help. I'd be prepared to share what I could bring to the table and where I'd like to go after graduation.
For example, a prof that has a large grant on generalized AI may have a need for grad students to help with the work. I'd contact the ones who might have resources (grants & contracts), express interest, and ask for help in getting into the program.
Another method I'd I'd use is to email/call/visit the faculty member currently in charge of admissions to the CS graduate program (on the website). I'd express my interest and ask if what the next best steps would be. They would probably know who's got grants in the works and who would need help. It's a lot like applying for a job.
Few faculty members like just to teach, so expressing a willingness to to take on some of that load as well as doing work on grants and contracts helps.
The school itself is interested in grad students who will go on to bring distinction to the school as scholars in the field. A few schools also prepare graduates to work in startups or tech corporations, but mostly they are looking for people who can bring the science forward with innovative thought and the ability to go out and find funding for the work.
It's a different world than your normal undergrad experience, but there are some people doing really cool work who are looking for grad students to help them out.
Many Masters and PhD Projects are what are the interest of the supervising professor and the interest of the student… when they merge there is money there for the project when the chemistry between the two works out. 
IaM-Ray, that's how it worked for me, a very long time ago. I'd like to see my grandson tuck in to something similar.
The PhD game these days if very different.
"different" as in much harder. Don't know about the PhD, which is always nice, but certainly a Master's would be a step forward. I did not go for a PhD, as I later discovered that it was a lot more fun to have a bunch of them working for me.
At times it is quite task specific.
AS = Almost Shyt
BS = Bull Shyt
MS = More Shyt
PhD = Piled HIgher and Deeper
@El Frazoo wrote: “I did not go for a PhD, as I later discovered that it was a lot more fun to have a bunch of them working for me.
Me, too! And a lot more lucrative, too!
All of my computer workplaces since 1978 or so had dual advancement ladders; One for engineers who wanted to remain as engineers/designers/single contributors, as well as another path for those who moved to “management” and climbed the ladder that way. Many engineers don’t want to manage others and might not be good at it. Dual advancement ladders gave them a proper growth path, too. Lots of other companies do this, today.
A lot of that process was new and made up as we went along and quite a bit of it caught on in other companies. I had a number of engineers on projects I managed who made significantly more than I did, because they were exceptionally talented and deserved it (and the projects would have suffered without them).
My last place didn’t have a lot of PhDs while I was there, maybe a couple dozen out of 500 engineering folks (many of them didn’t make a lot of noise about their degrees), but we had a lot of quiet Masters recipients who got their Masters nights or weekends while pushing the science of their everyday jobs by leaps and bounds. Quite a few engineers went back for MBA degrees to round out their backgrounds and then went into mid-upper management that way.
Also, the company paid all college fees and expenses for employees who qualified for advanced and/or accelerated degrees, right up through a PhD. That applied to other parts of the company, too, and lots of other high tech companies do the same.
@MusbJim posted:I don't often go to C&C or Car Shows, but when I do, I place a placard on my windshield. This takes the wind out of the blowhard P-car purists that like to bellow how they can tell it's a replica.
When asked "Why a replica?" my reply is "...Well, they're sorta like breast implants. EVERYBODY knows they're fake, but they're still nice to look at...and WAAAY more fun than the originals"!
Wishing you many miles of top-down driving while you enjoy driving that bad-boy!
Great solution; in this new era when the world has been overtaken by social media fueled narcissism truth is the most powerful antidote. Jim is the absolute diehard of the group with arguably the most miles driven on a Speedster. Definitely a brave soul using the Speedster as his daily driver, especially summers in Southern Ca. not to mention the crazy drivers.
I've had very few encounters in which anyone disparaged, implicitly or explicitly, either of my plastic clown cars for being fake.
With the MG it's "wait a minute...you say it has a Subaru engine, fuel injection...in the back?"
And the Spyder gets anything from "wow, cool" to "hey I noticed that you (fill in the detail)" from the few guys who know what a 550 RS is. The guy who runs the 356 Registry lauded the gold pinstripes on the fender darts (his Boxster has those too). Another compared my Spyder to the ex Jean Behra car (550-0067) he had seen up close at Monterey:
Mine's not a bad likeness, from some angles:
I swear a young dude I overheard looking at it one day last summer insisted to his buddy mine was the real deal, pointing out some detail or other in the cockpit. I regret not interrupting the man who was talking to me in order to correct him. 
The best reactions typically come from driving in to a new car guy venue. Park it, open the lids, walk off to get an egg sammy, turn around at about 20 paces, and
But the main way to avoid conflict is to share. People seem to like sitting in it, especially young people. They don't know it's a replica, wouldn't care if it was real. All they know is it's not like mommy's crossover hybrid.
Yup, always a crowd when you come back. Even at PCA events.