English language competence is a significant aspect of an engineering student’s academic life and prospective career

English plays an important role in a student's academic life and propective career. When a student enrolls in the university, he or she may finds that English is everywhere, such as the posters, the lectures and formal activities. One needs good English abilities to get to know the ideas sent by the professors. Also the books and journals are written in English. Students may spend a lot of time searching for informations in the library. Good English abilities may help them to use less time and find more information with good qualities. Then the efficiency of study is increased. Moreover, English is even important when students work in a group to do a project. All the students use English to communicate and write down their ideas. Then, all people need to use English to show their results to the audience. They may do a good job in research, but whether they can entirely show their results and work to the audience is the key point. In this case, good English is the key to success.
Meanwhile, English is also important in one's propective career. When doing research in professional level, the abstract ideas needs very complicated words to describe. There may be many difficult words and phrases. Good English speakers can get through these things and make their way easier. How to describe the conplicated things to the public is also important. Experts do very professonal research all the time, but the aim is to show the result of the research to the public and make the society develop. The ability to convert the complicated ideas to simple meanings is the point.

English is Significant for Engineering Students

English is the most widely used international language. Almost all the people in different countries know some words in English. Nowadays, globalization is the mainstream and the importance of English as a tool of communication is increasing. For engineering students, English is also very significant for both their academic life and career.

A high level of English ability helps students in their academic process. Students can approach the latest technology or industry information. Most of the developed countries around the world are English speaking, especially the United States of America ---the only superpower in the world. These countries are always in the leading place in the R&D of the advanced technologies and many academic journals or reports are published in English. Thus, having a good English ability can help students in reading the materials and keep in touch with the latest development of the technology in the field.

High English ability can help engineering students in their career. Learning a new language can always help people to enlarge the ‘stage for their performance’. This is true especially for learning English, since English is most widely speaking. Thus, students can work everywhere that speaks English. Furthermore, a good English competence also includes the oral ability. Nowadays, the companies do not only need the engineers with solid professional knowledge and skillful techniques, but also need engineers with good communication skills and leadership. In addition, along with the globalization, the international cooperation becomes more common and frequent in every field. English as an international language helps people to grab more opportunities.

Hence, students from non-English-speaking countries should spear no efforts to improve their English competence.

Hot discussion on nuclear reactor

A few days before, we had a hot discussion on nuclear reactor. The two sides stand for the Very High Temperature Reactor and Sodium cooled fast Reactor. These types of reactor are generation four reactors and our solution to future fuel issues. We carried on the discussion on three factors: security, cost, performance.

People still worry about the radioactivity a reactor sends out and they think the sodium cooled reactor is safer.Sodium is very chemically active and it can react with the core material and then the lifespan of the reactor will be less. Moreover, the sodium will get radioactive and we cannot imagine what it will be when the coolant is exposed to the outside. The VHTR has great advantages of security over other reactors like the sodium cooled fast reactor. First of all, it uses helium as coolant. Helium is an inert gas, it will not chemically react with any other materials. Meanwhile, helium is radioactive when it is radiated, unlike the other coolants. Even if all helium comes out of the reactor, it still causes little effects on the environment. We control the speed of the atoms to slow down the speed of the reaction. If the system loses control, its core temperature will rise and finally it melts. The possibility of a sodium cooled reactor to melt is about per reactor per year. The one of a VHTR is about per reactor per year. When the system finds something wrong, it will automatically stop working and cool down the temperature to a safe level.

Some people think the cost of the sodium cooled reactor is much cheaper. Apparently, the cost of VHTR is really high. But the economic rent of the reactor does not only depend on the cost to build the plant, but also depends on the efficiency of the reactor. We spend more money initially, but we can get more interests as it runs, so we still benefit. The VHTR has an average heat efficiency of 40%. The heat efficiency of sodium cooled reactor is only 20%. For example, one spends 1 billion dollars to build a 200MW VHTR and one builds a 100MW sodium one that costs 0.5billion dollars. The price of 1kw.h electricity is 8 cents. Then a 200MW VHTR will have an advantage of 1 billion dollars after 20 years run over the sodium cooled reactor. Then, the overall benefit of the sodium reactor is too little compared to the Very High Temperature Reactor.

Homosexuality Should be Respected

In my own opinion, homosexual should not be discriminated or even punished. On the contrary, people should respect the choice of them and give them their best wishes just like what they do for different gender lovers. There are two main reasons for my opinion.

First of all, homosexuality itself does not bring harm to the society. One of opponents’ argument is that homosexual may encourage unhealthy behavior, since the words like AIDs, drug, alcohol, suicide are always appear together with guy or lesbian, and in the impression of many people, places like guy pub are always connected with unhealthy things. However, the cases concerning AIDs, drug, alcohol, suicide of heterosexual people are much more than that of the homosexual people. People simply pay more attention to the cases on the later one. Moreover, the things that are really harmful to the society are drugs, alcohol and so on. Homosexual people are not dangerous and people who have even little contact with openly gay individuals will know they are the same with us except their sexual orientation only.

Furthermore, all people should have right to stay with their lovers regardless of the gender of them. People opposing homosexual argue that homosexual is immoral. This may sound reasonable at first since the heterosexual orientation is the natural one. However, as the human society develops to today’s stage, at which the propagation is no longer the major concern from very long ago, people court for spiritual gratification such as happiness. Thus, except the basic human rights that need protecting, people’s behavior of chasing happiness that does not harm others should not be prohibited as well. Sexual orientation is one this. Thus, freedom should be given to people, other than forbiddance.

My views on homosexuality

If one day I happen to see two guys walking together and joining their hands, I will not feel awful or unhappy. Just like the relationship between men and women, people may need other’s care and love, even from a different gender. For a person’s mentality, he or she may not handle it well. Usually we do not live alone and we find partners. We live with another one (usually different genders), we care about each other, we share our sorrow and happiness. We love someone because we admire someone or we are fond of them. Actually, nobody defines this “someone” to be a person of different gender. Two men can also develop a close relationship so long as they wish. We can not prohibit the homosexuality just because it just happens within a small scale of people. We should try to understand them and not discriminate against them.
To be honest, I have no interests in homosexuality. Yet, not all people are suitable for it. Meanwhile, we can not know what are they thinking. However, our society is a freedom world, people have rights to do whatever they want except those that hamper others. We need to show mercy on them because they can not do homosexuality in public, someone else may put different eyesight on them. They may hide somewhere else to avoid the public. They may not able to kiss in public like what a man and a woman can usually do. If a man naturally has no interest in women, why should we always force him to fall in love with a woman, then he and she will not live with happiness.

Review of the presentation

Dr. Benjamin Sovacool has given us a presentation, Adoption/ Non-adoption of technological innovations. This presentation focuses on the motivation and purpose of invention, the conditions for people to make good inventions and the standard for judging invention. “The things are all about solving problems” stated Dr. Sovacool. According to him, people are motivated by the desire for a more enjoyable and easier life to invent things. The desire human beings could never be satisfied. Thus, the process of innovation is nonstop. However, there are three dangerous traps in the way that may prevent people from inventing. They are conventions, fear of trying new things and suspicion of oneself. Moreover, for people to make good inventions, they must be creative and have the necessary knowledge and “street smart” which means to know things currently provided so that they won’t waste their time. In addition, since users’ reflections of an invention decide whether it is good or not, inventors should learn about human hehaviours as well in order to learn how customers will response to a product.

The overall presentation is successful, for the content is useful and the way of presenting is able to grab audiences’ attention. Nowadays, the world requires engineers to be capable of designing or creating products that is original, user-friendly as well as practically good (Chan, 2009). How can engineers make good invention? What kind of knowledge they need? These questions are all answered in this presentation, which gives the new generation of engineers an instruction of the direction they should work hard in. Except the useful contents, the lecturer also managed to make presentation interesting by using multimedia materials and giving concreted examples. For instance, the videos and pictures about the previous inventions and great inventors inspire the interest of the audiences in the topic. Hence, the whole presentation is brilliant.

Reference:

Chan, Eng Soon. “Desinging engineering to change the world”. April 21, 2009. The Straits Times.

Engineering design: beyond creativity and innovation

We are all convinced that an outstanding engineering design cannot be done without creativity and innovation. However, this is not the whole story. Engineering design aims to make the world a better place for people to live, so it cannot be only creative and innovative, but also, economically applicable to common use.
Engineering design does not like arts design. The machines engineers designed should help to make people’s life more convenient, or at least can be used by people. There is a program on Discovery Channel called Doing Da Vinci. Four engineers are involved in the program, whose duty is bringing the machines Da Vinci designed hundreds years ago back to life. They did an excellent job, but from another angle, we realise that Da Vinci’s creative, beautiful and even artistic designs are not useful at all. Four hundred years after Da Vinci, a great inventor, Edison’s designs changed the world much. How come the Edison’s designs were so popular, while Da Vinci’s complex design stopped on the draft paper? The secret is the practicability of designs, which is a basic requirement for designs become products.
However, there is another test before designs become popular products, which is about the survival ability in world market. This requirement limits the cost of engineering designs. In the economic world, we know in order to make a trade successful, the marginal benefit should overtake the marginal cost of the product. As engineering designs will become market products at last, engineers should follow the rules of economic world, trying to make the cost of designs as low as possible and the value as high as possible. So when engineers are thinking creatively, it is necessary for them to design products in a more economical way.
In the modern world, people’s involvement in the scope of market calls for engineers thinking beyond creativity and innovation. If an engineer wants his or her design to be popular, he needs to make it a product in the market. Moreover, to make the design a popular product, the engineer should consider how to make a useful design with the lowest cost in the beginning. Now, engineering design is beyond creativity and innovation.

If we say that scientists devote themselves to discovering the principles of the nature in order to help us understand the world better, then engineers try their best to apply the principles to create innovation in order to meet people’s needs and enhance the quality of our life. It is never easy to popularize the innovation as there are always conventions and prejudice blocking engineers’ path to success.

Engineers’ innovative design is aimed at changing the way we get accustomed to so that it will meet our needs better. However, to change one’s way is hardly accepted due to the dependence of the old habits. As a result, even the products or the designs are in high quality sometimes they are failed to be applied due to the prejudice or convention. For example, now we all are used to the normal umbrellas. Actually some inventors think of another improved version of umbrella which has plastic around the umbrella falling down to the ground like the curtain. In countries like Singapore, where the rainfall is often and heavy, this type of umbrellas is obviously more suitable for people. Nevertheless, some still think it strange to wear this kind of umbrella. If nobody dares to have a try then the brilliant innovation will be gone with the wind.

It reaches the consensus that engineers’ design will change the world. Still, whether engineers are able to change the world is not only determined by the quality of the innovation sometimes it is constrained by people who refuse to accept. In one word, to make our life better is not only the engineers’ duty but also ours.