I am going to college in a few weeks. I will be going to Purdue University in West Lafayette Indiana. I am looking forward to it. I will be studying Technology Engineering Teacher Education, so I will be a STEM teacher. I figured out while mentoring for VEX Robotics that I really like teaching and helping students solve problems. I feel like Purdue has a very good program and that I am going to enjoy it.
College so far has been fun and challenging. I have learned a lot and made plenty of memories so far. I've got one more year left, and I am definitely looking forward to entering the workforce. I have been enjoying my coursework, particularly ECET 224, my digital systems class. The class taught basic electronics, amplifiers, filters, logic, binary, and micro controllers. Some of the class was a review while the majority was new to me. My hope is that I write these "ramblings" often because it is fun.
I've been doing good. I have been busy with classes but less so compared to previous semesters. That is because I am only taking 12 credits which is what I need to keep my scholarships. I am done with most of my education classes and have mostly technical classes left. I am currently taking a materials science class about the processing and material properties of metals. We are testing the different properties of metals like tensile strength, and impact toughness at different temperatures. I have been enjoying the class a lot so far. I’m not sure how much of what I’m learning I’ll be able to teach to high school or middle school students. However, hardness and related things will definitely come up during a metalworking class if I ever get the opportunity to teach one.
This semester I am also taking a class on curriculum and instruction specifically in technology and engineering education. I’ve been enjoying the class so far. We have partnered with a local high school tech teacher to create a series of lessons about water transportation. I like boats and sailing so I am excited to be working on the project. I am also doing a project for a very cool class. This class is a cross between a design thinking and business class. We are forming teams to create novel products and learning how to market them and structure a business at the same time. I feel it is important to highlight the design thinking aspect of the course. Design thinking is about studying the customers needs in order to solve a problem. Looking at a lot of new technology, see CES, it seems that many companies have done without design thinking. Many of the new products out there are solutions in search of a problem or are so out there or expensive that only the most cutting edge and wealthy customers would buy them. I have been told that kind of behavior is what happens in a tech bubble, creating products just to try and get a slice of the huge investment and cash flow going into AI and robotics at the moment. I don’t really like AI, however that is worth another whole rambling.
I have mixed thoughts about AI. I believe that it can be useful and beneficial but only when used carefully. Many young people that I know have started using AI as a question in and answer out machine to complete all of their work. I believe that this is a harmful habit because you don’t end up learning anything if you have AI do all the work for you. I believe that AI is only beneficial when used as a tool and not a complete content generation tool. If I want some guidance for a project, ideas, or formatted word documents, I can ask AI for help and it does a pretty good job. I have been using Microsoft Copilot as my AI of choice because it is provided by Purdue for free. I am worried that current and future generations of students will suffer a loss of reading skills. Kids are already struggling to read due to COVID learning loss and modern methods of teaching reading. I am also worried about the environmental effects of AI and the strain it puts on the power grid. We don’t generate enough electricity to keep up with the growth of AI at the moment. Also the data centers are quite loud and cause a disturbance for people living in the area. Not to mention that the data centers use a ton of water for cooling.