Back from Break

Last week was Spring Break for Michigan State. A lot of people I know went to Florida and Mexico, but I just went back home to cold Brighton. The weather here hasn't decided if it wants to be spring or winter. The past two days the snow was melting, but right now it looks like a blizzard! Everything is white, and I really do not want to walk to class in this weather! One of the most random things I had to get used to when I came to college was that I had to actually walk outside and cross the street to get to class. In high school I wore heels since all my classes were in the same building, but that doesn't happen anymore! Now that I am deeper in my engineering curriculum, a lot of my classes are in and near the Engineering Building, but I am still not going to wear high heals to class anytime soon.

One important part of choosing a college is the faculty. The faculty are the people who will be teaching you classes, writing recommendation letters, and maybe even giving you a campus job if you work in a lab or grading papers. I like learning from people who are very involved in and excited about what they do, and most of the engineering faculty I know are like this. A lot of the professors are involved with a lot of cool projects at the university and national level. I like hearing about all of the interesting things that Michigan State and its professors are involved in, so I thought that maybe you would be, too.

Mechanical Engineering professor Farhang Pourboghrat went to the White House at the end of last month for the president's announcement on a new Detroit manufacturing institute. Canton Township will be home to the new Lightweight and Modern Metals Manufacturing Innovation Institute which will bring about 10,000 new jobs to the area. The $148 million Department of Defense institute will be supported by $70 million of federal funding and the rest will be supported by consortium partners. Here is the link to the full article with the list of university, corporate, and organizational sponsors:

Farhang Pourboghrat

http://www.egr.msu.edu/news/2014/02/24/me-professor-headed-white-house-announcement-manufacturing-institute