This is a collection of stories related to my school attendance through the years. This post is on my college years.
I knew for a long time that I wanted to be an electrical engineer. I think it was a love of math and science combined with seeing and hearing what Warren, Uncle Tony, and my father did in this area.
NCE – Undergraduate
After high school I was accepted into Newark College of Engineering with an Electrical Engineering major. I was able to get a state scholarship which paid the tuition for all four years (which was a whopping $300 a semester!). I commuted from home to Newark by train from Rahway. Parking in Rahway was difficult but it had a lot more trains than Woodbridge which was my other choice. Once in Newark, I walked the 1.5 miles from the train station to the college – all uphill! I saved the $.25 each way by not taking the subway.
College was very challenging but I really enjoyed all the math and sciences that I had to take. I really liked engineering because it made sense of so many things, there always was a right and wrong answer, but it made me even more logical than I had been. It was during my freshman year that I met Rose, who was a high school junior. She became part of my life from that point on (I’ll leave that for other posts).
There are too many things that I could add but here are a few that I remember that are worth noting:
- The first 2 years in Engineering were common across all majors. I remember the large lecture halls, the chemistry and physics labs, and lots of problems, study, and tests.
- I vividly remember one elective I took freshman year on “Cinema”. It was really fun watching “classic” movies but the instructor was very hard and saw all this “symbolism” that I just couldn’t see. I remember to see “2001, A Space Odessey” (which I saw several times) and having to compare it to “La Dolce Vida”. It was impossible!
- As a freshman I made Phi Eta Sigma the freshman honor society. I had lots of fun and met people who remain friends all through college.
- I remember one class on Therodynamics that I took in junior year that was impossible! I remember that everyone was failing miserably, even students who had a 4.0 cum up to that time. We all complained vehemently to the dept chairman and all got A’s for the course even though we learned nothing!
- As a junior I made the Tau Beta Pi National Engineering Honor Society and Eta Kappa Nu the corresponding EE honor society. I remember constructing the “Bent” which was a rough cast symbol of the honor society that we had to file, sand, and polish into a brillant pendant. It was an experience, but I still have it to this day.
Stevens – Graduate
St. Elizabeth College – Diaconate
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