Minneapolis visit

Many of you may of heard that I went on a trip to Minneapolis Minnesota on a business trip and stayed a couple of days to check out the city. The business part was to attend the BEST 1 conference on building envelope science and technology. I heard some great speakers and attended some interesting sessions. There were also a lot of sessions with little or no interest and very poor presentation skills. It was worth it and I got some very interesting elements out of it.

Below are some pictures of the city of Minneapolis and my trip:




Minneapolis sculpture garden

Me at the Minneapolis sculpture garden
Chuck Close
Famous artists at Minneapolis institute of art
Walker art museum (Modern Art)

Minneapolis institute of art

I thought that the Minneapolis institute of art was a much greater value than the Walker art museum and a better show all together. The museum was packed with historic and cultural artifacts as well as transformative works over the years. The Walker Museum of Art was just modern works and all very transitional. They have a feeling of being famous and notorious as apposed to beautiful or meaningful. That was my impression anyways. I would defenitely spend a day at MIA and the Walker was worth the visit because of the sculpture garden outside.

Thanks,

Nathan

EIT EXAM

I am preparing myself to take the EIT/FE exam in October. This means I will need to learn some pretty intense mathematics before then. I don't have a formal engineering education as someone who has a bachelors in landscape architecture and 74 credits towards a masters in construction management most of my knowledge with building science came from experience. I have worked for a couple of great firms, a sole proprietor who taught me loads about construction and got my hands dirty in the field actually constructing stuff. The other firm arguably the premier building science firm in the US and Canada. Based in Vancouver and has the brightest minds in building science working directly for them including me. I don't want to mention them because I think they have there reputation to protect and having me work for them may tarnish it.

I have prepared for the Engineers In Training Exam by creating a schedule and studying each day a different section until I have a fundamental knowledge of all the sections on the test. I feel that the test is made to separate the men from the boys and is a necessary step to becoming a professional engineer. I am lucky that they are giving me the chance to take the test. I thought it would take longer for me to acquire the experience but my education must have made a significant impact.

I will try to keep those of you that are reading this blog up to date on the progress as I go through the study materials and prepare for the test.

Thanks