Engineering vs. Programming

By the time I was ready to head to the University and go through the rigors of of getting an “education” I didn’t really want to study programming.  I decided to go much deeper, in fact, and study the atoms inside the processor of the computer.

My degree from the University of Utah is in Electrical Engineering.  During my last year I focused almost exclusively on graduate level courses and lab research in optoelectronics and semiconductor device physics.  Optoelectronics is the study of how semiconductors absorb and emit light.

Microfabrication at the University of Utah

Since the labs at the UofU didn’t have the right equipment to fabricate many optoelectronic devices, I worked on a theoretical device which we called a spinFET.  It’s a type of transistor, which differs from contemporary transistors in one significant way.  Instead of just  manipulating the charge of the electrons that carry current through the device, it would manipulate their spin too.

This opens the door to ultra low power devices that could even be manipulated to exhibit super conductive properties at room temperature.  It could also enable quantum computing and other novel applications of technology that currently aren’t possible.

The Power of Mentors

As with many things in life, success in my research and my passion to succeed in what I studied had everything to do with the talented and willing mentors around me.  My advisor Mark Miller and fellow graduate students Justin Jackson and Divesh Kapoor were awesome!

If none of that made any sense, don’t sweat it.  If you’re curious to know more about it, here’s my senior thesis which provides some of the highlights of my research.

In fact, I’ll be talking about alternative uses for membership websites, including education and online course delivery.  I’ll also cover payment integration methods and advanced autoresponder techniques to promote consumption of content while creating a passive interactive dialog which enables you to engage the most interested members of your community.

While I know this will be a very remote location for most of you, anyone is welcome.  I’ll be presenting at 3:00 pm in the Farnsworth building in room 65.  I’ll also record the session and post it here afterward.  If you have any topics you think I should cover, send me a message.

Use this link to learn more about the Boise Code Camp.

Since you are so into the good old USA, I wanted to sing you the National Anthem. I really hope you like it. I’m looking forward to talking with you on the phone soon.

Daniel

That’s really too bad since one of the projects I’m working on right now could benefit from some artistic ability.  I’d really love to call on my brother for help (he’s insanely artistic and creative), but he’s also very busy.  So I did what anyone else would do.

I went to you tube to learn to sketch people.  Here’s the video I found:

And here’s my first attempt at copying what someone else is good at. Which, by the way, is the real point of this post. I don’t have to be good at something if I have access to someone else that is good at it. As long as I observe well and take good notes AND MOST OF ALL, I have to do something with what I learn.

Let me know what you think of my first person sketch in the comments below.

how to sketch people - practice from youtube video