It Didn't Just Happen
Thursday, 10 July 2008 15:25![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dr_phil_physicsTime Warp
After the last post about studying and such, I got to thinking about Northwestern University and the Integrated Science Program (ISP). Though of course I'd already seen them, I read backwards through over a decade's worth of annual ISP newsletters.
I was in the original ISP Entering Class of 1976 and received my B.A. in Integrated Science in 1980. Of the original thirty students, one quit the first day, which was during New Student Week -- the week before classes started, but we got someone from the waiting list immediately. Only six of us survived to actually get the degree. Everyone else fled, and for them, sensibly, to more traditional majors.
Good Times.
Global Warming Update:
From one of the ISP Newsletters:
This was from the 1994 newsletter -- that's fourteen years ago if you're keeping score. And if you're thinking that this global warming stuff is all newfangled and uncertain and we haven't had a good handle on what, if anything, we should be doing about it, then consider that the list of topics -- mainly through energy conservation and profitable use of methane released from natural gas pipelines, coal mines, landfills and animal feed lots -- looks mighty familiar here in 2008.
Dr. Phil
After the last post about studying and such, I got to thinking about Northwestern University and the Integrated Science Program (ISP). Though of course I'd already seen them, I read backwards through over a decade's worth of annual ISP newsletters.
I was in the original ISP Entering Class of 1976 and received my B.A. in Integrated Science in 1980. Of the original thirty students, one quit the first day, which was during New Student Week -- the week before classes started, but we got someone from the waiting list immediately. Only six of us survived to actually get the degree. Everyone else fled, and for them, sensibly, to more traditional majors.
Good Times.
Global Warming Update:
From one of the ISP Newsletters:
Recent letter from Jeanne Briskin (EC '77)***
"Dear ISP: Here's a long delayed response to the August ... newsletter. After graduating from NU in '81 (BA Chemistry and Environmental Studies; alas 8 am chemistry lab won out over geophysics), I went to MIT in another obscure program called Technology and Policy, with an emphasis on environmental policy. I won a Noyes Fellowship to work at the Conservation Law Foundation. At graduation, I joined the US EPA in Washington, DC. After working on hazardous waste policy, writing regulations on lead in drinking water, conducting the first survey of pesticides in drinking water wells, my job is now to implement programs to prevent global warming -- mainly through energy conservation and profitable use of methane released from natural gas pipelines, coal mines, landfills and animal feed lots.
*** -- PEK note: EC '77 means ISP Entering Class of 1977, i.e., the second year of the program. Since ISP students could take three or four years to graduate, depending on any second majors, plus many ISP students leave the program for more traditional majors, we are easier to identify by when we started.
This was from the 1994 newsletter -- that's fourteen years ago if you're keeping score. And if you're thinking that this global warming stuff is all newfangled and uncertain and we haven't had a good handle on what, if anything, we should be doing about it, then consider that the list of topics -- mainly through energy conservation and profitable use of methane released from natural gas pipelines, coal mines, landfills and animal feed lots -- looks mighty familiar here in 2008.
Dr. Phil
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no subject
Date: Friday, 11 July 2008 00:35 (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, 11 July 2008 05:00 (UTC)Dr. Phil
Cowflops for fun and profit
Date: Friday, 11 July 2008 14:17 (UTC)Kind of fun, I do remember we had to calculate the amount of cow methane that would be required to toast a single slice of bread...
Don't remember the answer all these years later, but we had a hilarious time figuring it out. Our professor threatened to change it to the quantity of beans he'd need to eat to produce an equal amount. EEWWW.
oops!!
Date: Friday, 11 July 2008 14:18 (UTC)Guess I'll just be anonymous for today.
Re: oops!!
Date: Friday, 11 July 2008 15:04 (UTC)Dr. Phil
Re: oops!!
Date: Friday, 11 July 2008 20:43 (UTC)Re: oops!!
Date: Saturday, 12 July 2008 01:34 (UTC)Dr. Phil
Re: oops!!
Date: Sunday, 13 July 2008 00:13 (UTC)That's big sister to you!!!
The REAL older sister of dr_phil_physics!!!