procrastination
I wonder how different my outlook on things would be today had I chosen to do an arts degree instead of what I'm doing now. I have to say that I do enjoy many aspects of Industrial Chemistry. I like the feeling you get when you take in highly abstract information and understand it to the point of seeing its limitations. It's like shackles falling off. I don't like being bound to recieved beliefs, I can trust ideas but I can't bring myself to have unshakeable faith in anything.
Unfortunately, we have so much work to do that it's almost impossible to reach such a level of understanding of our subject material without completely stunting every other aspect of our lives that we deem to be important. As a consequence, my degree has basically been an excercise in treading water. I'm probably going to come out of it adequately trained to do things that are deemed to be productive, but my knowledge of the subject material I've gone through has been merely adequate, just about everything I've learnt remains based on faith. As a result, it feels as though everything I've learnt at uni is just a whole lot of ultimately meaningless practical information in my head. I don't think I'll be contemplating digital PID controllers or centrifugal pumps when I'm lying on my death-bed. I suppose I could satisfy my curiosity about some obscure aspect of the world and head down the path of research after I finish my degree, but if the primary reason I want to do research is to come to terms with and go beyond some sort of recieved belief, I may as well go and study something worthwhile (i.e. most probably not anything to do with Industrial Chemistry).
Now that that's out of my system... I feel like procrastinating a little more:
www.theworldofadam.com
After you've familiarised yourself with Jerbear and his music video, check out the movies for "The Lake" and "Mysteries of Love". The music's pretty incredible, though it could well make you want to vomit. Sounds like everything Industrial Chemistry isn't. Heartfelt, gender-bending weirdness. Challenging in ways that my thesis isn't... which reminds me. I'd better quit writing in here and get back to writing about how highly crystalline materials, with less surface and bulk defects, improve charge separation and reduce conduction band electron and valence band hole recombination in titania photocatalysts. Fun-ness :)
Unfortunately, we have so much work to do that it's almost impossible to reach such a level of understanding of our subject material without completely stunting every other aspect of our lives that we deem to be important. As a consequence, my degree has basically been an excercise in treading water. I'm probably going to come out of it adequately trained to do things that are deemed to be productive, but my knowledge of the subject material I've gone through has been merely adequate, just about everything I've learnt remains based on faith. As a result, it feels as though everything I've learnt at uni is just a whole lot of ultimately meaningless practical information in my head. I don't think I'll be contemplating digital PID controllers or centrifugal pumps when I'm lying on my death-bed. I suppose I could satisfy my curiosity about some obscure aspect of the world and head down the path of research after I finish my degree, but if the primary reason I want to do research is to come to terms with and go beyond some sort of recieved belief, I may as well go and study something worthwhile (i.e. most probably not anything to do with Industrial Chemistry).
Now that that's out of my system... I feel like procrastinating a little more:
www.theworldofadam.com
After you've familiarised yourself with Jerbear and his music video, check out the movies for "The Lake" and "Mysteries of Love". The music's pretty incredible, though it could well make you want to vomit. Sounds like everything Industrial Chemistry isn't. Heartfelt, gender-bending weirdness. Challenging in ways that my thesis isn't... which reminds me. I'd better quit writing in here and get back to writing about how highly crystalline materials, with less surface and bulk defects, improve charge separation and reduce conduction band electron and valence band hole recombination in titania photocatalysts. Fun-ness :)
posted by Gene at 10:49 pm
If you say that when you graduate, you will feel like you will leave with only a 'skimming' of practical knowledge, then I wonder what I could have possibly gained from three and a half years of the same!
I agree that most of the time this course doesn't seem do much for exercising the imagination outside of control schemes.
I remember laughing to myself watching people obey the ideal gas laws when they arranged themselves in an elevator, or even how Gibbs free energy could be seen as an analogue for friendship.
Having not read recreationally for a few months I randomly picked up Carey's 'Oscar and Lucinda', felt like I'd been hit by something large and brick-like and decided I should make an effort to read something other than Perry's more often!
I recently 'wasted' an afternoon preparing a piece for 'unsweetened', though I think it's these little things that keep me (relatively) sane! I am definantly going back to study english. I tell myself that if I can survive this year, I can do anything.
Well done in your presentation! (from the highly infectious second speaker)
I think I made a wise investment in my future and vowed to never buy Perry's...
Personally, I couldn't imagine coming out of this degree and getting a job straight away. If we can't find the will to do something out of the ordinary now, I struggle to see how it'd be any easier to do so after years of building a nice little rut in the workforce. So going back and studying English sounds like a great idea, I say go for it!
Survive this year or not, I'm sure that you can do anything. You've already performed the superhuman feat of shooting Burf down during your thesis presentation :)
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