Writing as an Engineer

By Khalifa Alzaabi

Do engineers write a lot? Is a question that almost every engineer asks. Of course yes, all engineers from different majors are required to write. Here is a list of what engineers write about:

· Analysis
· Progress reports
· Incident reports
· Forecast
· Plans
· Proposals
· Recommendation
· Action reviews
· Work description
· Etc.
                                                      

In my Engineering class, I am asked to write a memo for every checkpoint I achieve, the memo is 10 pages long and it should includes pictures, graphs, and tables. Moreover, there are some requirements for the paper. For instance, you can only use third person phrases, and the language should be easy for the reader so that they can understand what is going on. These writings are called technical writings. According to Atul Mathur they involve 2 key competencies. The first one is the ability to understand technical language; the second is being able to express that knowledge in a clear, concise, and coherent manner.

Resources:

https://www.asme.org/career-education/articles/business-writing/how-engineers-can-improve-technical-writing.

Why do engineers work in teams?

By Khalifa ALHammadi


Engineering is one of few fields that require team work. Most of the engineering projects require team work because engineers work on many huge projects. These large projects require a lot of work; this is the main reason of engineering teams. Besides that, some projects require more than one type of engineer, so engineers must work in groups to get the work done.






Team work has many disadvantages but it has more advantages. One of the advantages is that working in a group saves time and times now days means money; when engineers work in teams they save money. In addition, working as a group helps to generate ideas and this leads to creative results. More over, team work helps each individual in the team to learn new things by looking at how each team member view the issue or the reason that made up the team. So team work creates higher quality outcomes that are efficient and effective in a faster way.

More advantages/disadvantages of team work:

http://www.hf.faa.gov/webtraining/teamperform/Team008.htm



Works cited:

Berger, Erran. Team work. Digital image. Linkedin. Linked In, 12 May 2014. Web. 10 Oct. 2015.

How oil is priced?

By Khalifa ALHammadi


Oil prices are determined in a very unique way. Firstly, gasoline and diesel fuel that we use are refined from Crude oil or petroleum. Crude oil is a commodity material such as coffee and gold. Commodity material does not depend on the place and the people who get it because it does not change. Commodity price go high and down because depend on the supply/demand of the world. As the supply increase and the demand decrease the prices go down; and as the supply decrease and the demand increase the prices go up.




The thing that makes the oil prices unique is the future contracts. These contracts are agreements to sell or buy oil at a specific date with a specific price. These contracts affect the supply/demand of the world because they can keep the prices high or low depending on the contracts. There are other factors such as crises and disasters but they don’t occur a lot so they don’t affect the prices a lot.



Works Cited

George, Patrick E. "What Determines Oil Prices?" Investopedia, 02 July 2008. Web. 03 Oct. 2015. <http://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/determining-oil-prices.asp>.

Oil Price. Digital image. Oil Boom USA, 10 June 2015. Web. 3 Oct. 2015. <http://oilboomusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/oil-prices1.jpg>.

The Business of Chemical Engineers

By Khalifa Alzaabi

As mentioned in my previous post, chemical engineers apply the principles of chemistry, biology, physics and math to solve problems that involve the production or use of chemicals, fuel, drugs, food and many other products (Lucas).
Chemical engineering jobs fall into two main groups: industrial applications and development of new products. Chemical engineers may spend time at industrial plants, refineries and other locations, where they monitor or direct operations or solve on-site problems. Manufacturing industries that employ chemical engineers include agricultural chemicals like fertilizers, pest control and weed control. Furthermore, they also manufacture textiles, food processing, and consumer products. For example, personal care, lawn care and pharmaceuticals as well as chemical manufacturers that supply products to countless other industries.
Many chemical engineers belong to the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), which is considered to be a certified organization established in 1908 that has more than 45,000 members in over 100 countries.


Works Cited:
Lucas, Jim. "What Is Chemical Engineering?" Live Science. TechMedia Network, 03 Oct. 2014. Web. 27 Sept. 2015.

How to find a free wifi

By: Abdulaziz Khudada




Everyone is using his smartphone almost everyday. Sometimes we cannot find service in a building or in the street to use our smartphone. we need to use the internet because is the most thing we use our smartphone. There is a lot of people are tweeting, snapchating, or using the other social media. Some people have a contract with limited data plan and they do not waste their data on something or they want save their data.

There is a lot of ways to find a free wifi. Using the feature of connecting with the open wifi in the settings is the first way; however, there is a free wifi but you need to have access code to connect with it. Some places always have a wifi around the world like Starbucks, Apple store, McDonald’s. Some places usually they want you to buy anything from them to give you the access code to the wifi. There are places with full coverage wifi like public transportation, libraries, malls, and big stores like BestBuy. There are new apps that can notify you if there is a free wifi around you. The best thing for a person who does not a data for his phone is to find a popular store that provide a free wifi without an access code, and ask for free wifi hotspot around the place.


[Article in CNET]: Purewal, Sarah. “How to find free Wi-Fi anywhere in the world”. CNET. September 30, 2015.

[picture] http://astuceclub.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/wifi-password-cracking-1.jpg

Prompt #6 Evaluating Sources

By Abdulaziz Khudada

Finding information about a specific field as a beginner in that field is not difficult because It's a great way to know more about my field. Using the internet is the easiest way to find informations and details that you want. When you write about your field or other field you need to have some reliable and true information. Deciding which source is the best are the hardest thing to do; however, for the most of the college students their college provide them with the best sources to use and relay on it.
I find a lot of sources describing my field. The first source I found is Wikipedia and it's the most popular source. Wikipedia anyone can edit the information in the website. Sometime you cannot decide if its true or not. I searched a lot in the internet about my field and I found a lot of reliable sources. Usually I use the Michigan State University Library search plus because its easier, and helps you to find what you want like articles and books, also the website can give you a reliable source. MSU search plus helps me a lot to know about my field. Things I have learned about my fields is a lot of big companies needs electrical engineering employees, and those companies cannot develop their work without them. I have a lot of questions for my field and they are: What is the basic things to learn when you at electrical engineering, and how you can develop things by that field, also why is electrical engineering important for the world. All these questions I have answers for it by just searching in the website.

 

MSU Search Plus

Electrical Engineering Leading World’s Communication Revolution

By Boyuan Sun

Checking your cellphone every minute, spending over 10 percent of your time texting and reading on your cell phone do you ever wonder what kind of technology can make the life style so much different from that fifteen years ago?

Communication is a huge part of electrical engineering. With a rapid growth of world’s information transmitting speed mobile phones and other wireless devices are owned and widely used by more and more people. The forth generation of mobile telecommunications technology, so called 4G, is accepted by the market with its impressive transmitting rate. The forth generation products are regulated by the IMT-Advanced requirement used by The International Telecommunication ,ITU for radio-access technologies. [1]





From 1980s, the first generation came out providing service with incompatible standards to the early 1990s the first of the digital second generation was set up with limited circuit-switched data services. It didn’t take long for electrical engineers to make a significant progress.[2]

Nowadays, 4G again is leading people to reach a new level of freedom. Being able to have a data transmitting speed over 1 Gbit/s peak bit rate in their, people now are provided with more options to communicate, to choose entertainments with all the video call, movies and TV shows in their mobile phones.


[1]ITU-R SG5, “Invitation for submission of proposals for candidate radio interface technologies for the terrestrial components of the radio interface(s) for IMT-Advanced and invitation to participate in their subsequent evaluation”, Circular Letter 5/LCCE/2, March 2008.


[2]Agilent Technologies, “IMT-Advanced: 4G Wireless Takes Shape in an Olympic Year”, U.S.A, Agilent Technologies Inc., 2008.9.1, Print.