Summer is a-coming and to mining too. In spite of the gloom surrounding the West Virginia tragedy and the ongoing fight over the Alaskan Pebble Mine. I know summer is a coming as my e-mail inbox is filling with applications from students for summer and permanent jobs.
The most intriguing request for help getting a job on the mines reads thus (unedited):I would like to know how to get a job in the mining industry,without any expierance ,and without paying someone to help .Are their mines out there which will take you on and train you on the job.If so who are they and where are they. kgmarriott@hotmail.com.<
I cannot help this person, but maybe you can. I just do not know how to advise somebody about getting educated at zero expense and effort on a mine. Is this a failure of the education system? We surely cannot brand it a failure of the mining industry.
Conversely I cannot but believe there is a job for this student, who is from West Virginia University. A few details—contact me if you need more as part of an undertaking to employ him:
I am a Master’s student specializing in Civil engineering and will graduate in May 2010 from West Virginia University, Morgantown. I have a strong soil mechanics background and have instructed more than 100 students to perform tests on soils which include Grain Size distribution, Compaction, Direct Shear, Consolidation, Tri-axial test, etc. Graduate study with research and teaching experience in structural and geotechnical area have improved my ability to work with groups, and helped me to get a better understanding of design and analyses of various problems in Civil Engineering. Over past few years, I have also built a tremendous caliber in exploring challenging software applications, and am acquainted with tools like Microsoft Office, AutoCAD, GeoStudio, STAAD Pro, ABAQUS and ANSYS.
Seems like he could help the mining industry, aka mining companies and/or regulators, a great deal.
Another sign that summer is a-coming is the announcement of upcoming CIM conferences. The session that intrigues me is announced thus in an e-mail:
A large number of design, environmental and operating professionals are in the business of mined materials management “M3”. While there may be agreement that we can provide robust evaluations and designs of such facilities, not all M3 facilities perform as designed and not all expectations are always met. This session will consist of short presentations by a number of professionals, followed by a panel discussion. The speakers will also be panel members. The following questions will be discussed during the presentations and the panel session:
- Do you agree that we have the technology to consistently design robust M3 facilities?
- In your experience do these M3 facilities perform as expected during operations?
- In your opinion, for what reason do they not perform as expected?
- What can be done to improve performance, e.g. better communications between project and operating teams, discontinuity between design and operational input by designers, others?
- Can we identify the key characteristics of “good M3 facilities”, i.e. ones that are performing well?
I probably will not attend. For these reasons: I have no idea what M3 is or why I should become informed about another verbal fad. (I prefer the BMW M3 pictured here.) Also I am apt to focus on the humorous and fanciful aspects of such presentations, and thereby distort the truth and offend the speakers. Bloggers are like that, inherently. Maybe somebody else can summarize it for me after the session.
Finally there is a flourish of e-mails asking that I mention sites possibly related to this one on this blog. Here are but two–both reasonable if you have the time:
- Constructionmanagementdegree.org recently came across your blog and were excited to share with you an article “100 Best RSS Feeds to Follow Engineering News” was recently published on our blog at (http://constructionmanagementdegree.org/blog/2010/100-best-rss-feeds-for-engineering-news/)
- I know this email is out of the blue, but I just posted an article on my blog entitled “50 Free & Fascinating Online Documentaries for Engineers” http://toponlineengineeringdegree.com/?page_id=119 . Anyway I figured I’d bring it to your attention in case you thought it interesting enough to drop a quick mention on your site.
Thus I quit this blog to rush outside to the sun and the promise of summer. Hope you can and do so too.
