Career Aspirations

Things at the lab in Valencia have gotten busy since I got here. They have been in contact with these people that want to build a mollusk farm in the north of Spain, and they want the raft that holds this farm to be made of reinforced concrete, so it can last more than a season without having to change the entire raft. Apparently up until now they have been made of some type of wood that would last a season before it got harmed too much from being in the ocean. Right now, you probably have a few questions like:
How does a concrete raft even begin to make sense?
What does this have to do with researchers at a university?
Why do I even bring this up when talking about career aspirations?

 This is a model of a section of the raft that will be created with reinforced concrete. This section is about 4 meters wide by 2.8 meters, and the entirety of the project will be 28 m x 20 m, or at least that's what I heard. This part is filled from the bottom, so the picture shown is what will go connected to another steel frame that in turn will be connected to huge floaters. I haven't had a chance to see the floaters, but I know they are at least the size of a bus! Everything in the middle not seen filled with concrete will be hollow and used to connect to another part of the raft or simply to decrease the burden on the floaters. So, with the huge floaters and some hollow parts, the concrete raft begins to make sense no?

My mentor focuses his research on the the effects of corrosion on steel and how to mitigate the effects of harmful elements to the reinforced concrete structures (Harmful elements like chloride, which causes oxidation of the steel bar, and leads to a weaker structure).
The ocean itself has chlorides that affect the prestressed concrete that these rafts will be made of, so the researchers here got in on the project to study the effects of an environment in a real situation to obtain results that are going to be great to look at. Given, it will take a long time to get results back, because they are using really good cement and the effects won't be seen until the chlorides get through the concrete coating to the steel.

Corrosion isn't cool, but this picture is

I think we can all agree working in a lab is cool.

Being here in Valencia has also been a lot about learning what people do in graduate studies, and exposing me to what research is like. They are in essence, discovering things. This is amazing to me. All this time since I got into Civil Engineering, I thought of getting my degree, and then after that going in to get a Master's degree to get a good job, and applying that in a good engineering firm. After that, somewhere down the road, make my own company where I would be the master of my own time, and not work on another person's schedule.

After spending time here though, I think I am starting to look at research as more than an obstacle that I have to overcome in order to get to work. I am enjoying being in this environment, where people are excited to be involved in their work and learning about their respective fields. I think I could even consider doing something like this in the future, and maybe look at Master's programs in the US and abroad. I can see myself working in a lab, doing research and maybe even teaching? Probably no teaching for me.

When I go back home though, I will keep this experience in mind all the time. I expect to brag about it too, but that's not what I'm talking about. I want people who don't know to realize that it's not just the US doing big things, that the knowledge is universal and everywhere around the world there's things being discovered and people you can consult so you don't mess up a project. Maybe there's a Master's degree in Spain in my future. Going forward, my career will definitely take bigger picture things into consideration, and I believe everything I do (hopefully) will be available to people across the world, if they're interested. Oh well, enough about big picture things. I'm wrapping this blog up with some down to Earth desires I want in my near future.

I want some horchata.

IRES Post #2

Culture

It's been two weeks since I first arrived here in Spain. In that time, what I've done here has felt so  different from what I have lived in Texas. The way people live here is simply different.

Transportation
I know this might not seem like an important part of culture, but it is one of the things that changed the most for me. Living in Texas where huge 4x4 trucks with a lift kit, are used daily to go to church or to school, or simply to go mudding (consists of trying to go as fast as possible through muddy terrain on one of those four wheeled monsters). Everyone has their own car, not necessarily a truck, but some sort of transportation of their own. Even in my family, just recently, we had 4 cars for our household of 5, something that seems unimaginable being here in Europe.

Here, the public transportation system seems to be what a good amount of people use, and honestly, it's soooo easy to use. As long as you're not going the wrong way.

I can definitely see many of the traffic problems in Texas being alleviated with a system similar to the one they employ here that includes trams, metros, and buses. It's frustrating, actually, seeing how the US claims to have the best of everything, but they aren't setting cities up right.

Come on, America

Okay, next.


Workdays
Here, they take it easy. They have the same pressure as we do, but they handle it differently. Work is a good comparison. In Spain, they start work at 8, usually. If not 9, is good too. After an hour or so, taking a coffee break (or beer if you want) is also good to increase productivity, to eat, socialize, and finish waking up basically. I take advantage at this time to eat a bocadillo, almost daily. A bocadillo is a sandwich served on a baguette that can bring pretty much anything. This thing will fill you up until 2, no matter what. Believe me, I know. At 2, another break, this one longer for their lunch and a nice little siesta (I have also taken full advantage of this). After that, they go back and finish the day out strong. They still get all of their work done, but the scheduling is different. I think this is the right way to set things up, because just going straight from 9-5 every day is unbelievably mind-numbing and stressful. I hear UTA might be introducing this system soon...

Food

Bocadillo con tortilla de
 patata y morcilla (blood sausage)

Paella Valenciana

Usually I'm too busy stuffing my
 face to get good pics of food

Simply amazing.

I have gotten along well in Spain. People here are so friendly, and they go out of their way to help us sometimes. Three of us speak Spanish, one of them being me, so moving around and getting food (always important) is relatively easy. Talking to my mentors is a bit more complicated. Since they know I understand Spanish perfectly, they explain everything in the lab in Spanish. The problem there is that a lot of what I've learned in college was taught in English, and some of the words don't really translate, so I have to google them or something of the sort. But apart from that, it's all great. They're always letting me know of things that are happening around Valencia that actual locals go to, which is always a good way to know what the city is all about.

The view from my balcony

I've gotten used to Benimaclet, the neighborhood we live in. We are located in a pretty nice area, not too far from the beach, with a fair amount of people around us at all times. They really are a tight knit community, it's like its own town where everyone knows one another and they can tell who isn't from around there in a heartbeat. Maybe it's because people are used to being outside a lot more, so they see each other every day. Kids are usually running around during the day, and at night a lot of the young people can be seen just sitting down having beers and chatting. The European Cup started soon after we got here, so I'm starting to get to see the Spain games at local bars, and the other day we walked past a basketball court that had been transformed so people from the area can get together and watch Spain play. Let's just hope they make it far into the competition. Around the neighborhood I'm starting to see more and more familiar faces, and I try to be as nice to them as they are to me.

Being here, it just makes me want to spend time outside, enjoying the beach as I would do in Honduras, or taking in some of the sights around here. The weather is always nice, the breeze from the sea keeps people cool, and the heat has never been unbearable. On top of that, it gets dark at 10PM, so there's time in the day to go around Valencia. I don't think I'll ever get tired of being here.

IRES Post #1

Before I begin, I would like to thank the National Science Foundation, The University of Texas at Arlington, and the Polytechnic University of Valencia for this project I am taking part of. It truly is an awesome thing to be able to live abroad and have these research opportunities at this stage in my life.

Next, I will tell you what you are signing up for if you do decide to read this blog:

1. This blog will be about my time in Valencia, and some of the things that have led me down this path I'm on. 

2. I will write a blog weekly, and more times than that if I take some cool pics of cool Europe things.

3. I will try to keep this somewhat informal, because the experiences here are some that I am thoroughly enjoying, and as such, I'd like to relate them as close as possible to how I lived them.

4. I'm terrible at picture captions, so sorry for that in advance.

Civil Engineering

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...

I still remember the conversation my friend, his dad and I had about Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken".  What is the right path to take? If one looks better than the other does initially, does that mean that is the way that will make you the happiest? Do you go through life thinking about the what-ifs, and how your life might be so different now if you had taken the other path ? I know this poem has been talked about a million times, but still it is what I find myself thinking about when I think about why I chose Civil Engineering. 

The Road Not Taken

I can always look back on school as one of the deciding factors of why I chose Civil Engineering. Growing up, as others dreaded learning new things in math class, I always welcomed the challenge. I was happy solving problems, and this led me to take an elective called Engineering Math in my senior year of high school, which turned out to be the best class I took there. I got to use EasyC programming (turned me away from Computer Software Engineering), used that to program robots we got to put together, and do other things of that sort. However, towards the end of the class, we got to play around with bridge designs, and simulated the forces a truck would exert on the bridge and see how this load would affect the structure. As well as choosing the type of bridge you wanted to make, you could change the material it was made from to change the overall cost of the project. I was fascinated. 

My grandfather was also a Civil Engineer, and I can definitely say that he is another reason I chose CE. Seeing him work on fixing a problem as we waited to go have ice cream with him or go to the movies always made me think he was doing something worthwhile. He must have been doing a great job, because he got recognized for it in Costa Rica, and I'm not the only one to see this in the family. My oldest cousin and my brother (who surely is not reading this blog to compare to his own) are also in the same field. Maybe that's why I wanted to explore more about his profession in college.

A couple of years down the line, I still haven't figured everything out,  but I do know that this path I have chosen for myself is definitely not one I will regret later. I have enjoyed every minute of my Civil Engineering classes, and I believe that the knowledge I am acquiring there will help me in life in one way or another. This IRES research project is an extension of that. This feels like the right place to be at the moment, and having the opportunity to see people so advanced in their fields as involved in what they do as the people I have worked with this past week makes me feel like I am heading the right way. I feel that someday I can be as passionate for one of my projects as they are for theirs. I want to contribute knowledge to my field as they have, and allow people's futures to be improved even if what I do is something that they wouldn't notice on a day to day basis.

Opening reinforced concrete samples to check for corrosion

Looking forward is different. Though I'm not sure of what lies ahead of me, I am sure that I want to continue down this path and eventually be able to create something that will improve the lives of others, and will also carry my name. In the end, I just want to do something along the lines of what my grandfather did, which is take care of the people in his family and I think I can achieve that with Civil Engineering.

Fam time