Outcomes

Outcomes

First, I have learned how to cook a dish called “Patatas a lo Pobre”. During our first weekend in Spain, as I have already mentioned in previous blogs, Ana Barella taught Kavitha, Kelsey, and I a recipe called Patatas a lo Pobre. Ana explained that the dish translates to Poor Style Potatoes. The story behind the dish’s name is that in olden times, poor people could not afford anything other than potatoes. (Surprisingly, this is a story I have heard from my dad who grew up farming potatoes as well. This was a crazy similarity in cultural background). The first step in making this delicious recipe was the grocery shopping. Grocery shopping was much like it is in the U.S. except a few minor changes, like how the little machines that weigh your fruits print out a bar code on the spot. After picking out potatoes, garlic, and olive oil we found the deli counter.  Once at the deli counter, Ana had to talk us into ordering half a pound of specialty ham, or Jamon Serrano. Kelsey and I, both trying to ease our way into eating meat, were not too thrilled at the idea. In the end, we gave in to the local connoisseur! We ended up with a yummy twist to the original recipe with ham and eggs on top and it was amazing.

We also learned that big social dinners are a norm in Spain. Above is a photo of our group sharing a pot-luck dinner before leaving Spain.

   
 Next thing I learned while I was in Spain was how to use public transportation maps. It seems as though they would be user friendly since they are usually color coded and numerically organized. However, since I had no point of reference, never having lived in Valencia before, it was quite puzzling at some moments. Especially during those moments when I had exactly 30 seconds to get on the next train before it took off for its last journey. Those puzzling moments always happened at the most inopportune times. But after learning how to download maps offline and plan my trips ahead of time, I was able to master the skill of not being a clueless tourist!

            One more new lesson I learned while in Spain was fully technical. I learned how to analyze frequencies using the program MatLab. I had used this program before in other coursework but had never really mastered it. While I conducted my project at AIDICO, MatLab seemed to be an essential part of working there. In fact my mentor Jose Vi was shocked that I did not already have MatLab downloaded on my personal computer. He gave me a quick tutorial of how to find the FFT’s using a series of keyed in equations. The tutorial was seriously quick, so quick I was not able to catch anything that was going on. Jose Vi’s time was very limited during our stay, he was handling many jobs at once, so he could not stay and talk me through the process of analyzing the rest of the frequencies. However, I learned that all of the equations typed in are stored in the Command History. After printing that day’s entire command history, highlighting the important commands, and typing in what seemed to be gibberish, I came up with a semi-understandable report of my analysis. After showing it to my mentor, he said it made sense, so I suppose I am able to use MatLab now.

 Above is a photo taken by Toul in the NDT lab during a brief Mat-Lab tutorial from Jose Vi.

         

 My prior educational background is rich with works under pressure. The deadlines that always seemed to creep up on me for various reasons greatly prepared me for the real world. Deadlines in the real world consist less of asking for extensions (which to my defense I have never done) and more about working through lunch breaks, dinner breaks, sleep breaks or even sanity breaks and just getting the work done no matter what it takes. My prior educational background also gave me a little background on issues of civil infrastructure and the need to find effective ways of addressing them. Flooding, undrinkable water, earthquakes, and transportation are all real world issues that American engineers try to solve. However, I was not prepared enough to view those issues from a Spanish engineer’s perspective. Obviously I could never be unless I had completed an education and some experience in Spain. The optimism that my prior educational background instilled in me helped me keep a positive outlook to the project no matter what circumstances. Although I did not know absolutely anything about non-destructive testing, I knew that I could learn about it as soon as I could and then pass on the knowledge to other people. That was the most interesting experience.

            Understanding what was expected of me in such an unfamiliar environment was definitely a challenge. But with some perseverance from both sides, my mentor and I were able to understand each other. The evidence was in my final presentation of the IRES project. After giving the presentation, I realized I had learned much more than I ever expected, and that felt like a challenge overcome. 

Below is a photo taken of me on August 1st, right before the IRES Final Presentation at AIDICO. Although I was nervous in the beginning, I quickly realized I had been more than prepared for the presentation.