Friday, February 26, 2016

Random Thoughts For February

I haven’t written in this blog for over a month now so I thought it is time for some random comments.

Last night I gave a class to some mechanical engineering students taking a class in physical metallurgy.  I only talked for about 15 minutes as I pointed out some resources such as ASTM Standards, MatWeb, the ASM handbook and others.  The plan was for me to stay in the class for about an hour to be available to answer questions.  I observe that the students were searching Google and the Wikipedia for information.  A few were searching Scopus which I did discuss.  Again, I am being cynical, but I keep wondering if lecturing to students really does any good.


A chemistry professor is interviewing candidates for a faculty position.  He is showing the candidates the library and has brought them to meet with me very briefly.  A few days ago one candidate was wearing jeans.  You would think that someone with a doctorate would be smart enough to wear a suit for a job interview.