ChESS ball and grad jobs

Well once a year we get to let our hair down at the ChESS ball. ChESS is the chemical and environmental student society, not the game! It's a great time to socialise and party with everyone we normally see around uni.


Having only four weeks left of class and two exams before I'm completely finished my degree, it was a little sad knowing it was my last ball, especially as I'll be in South America when my graduation ceremony is on, so I won't see everyone together then either!


One great thing about engineering life is that you really get to know the people in your discipline and I've made some really great friends along the way. Another great thing is the availability of great jobs when you graduate.

I have accepted a job with Santos (http://www.santos.com), one of Australia's leading gas producers, and I start in February after a relaxing trip around South America and South East Asia (I think I deserve it after spending all my Christmas holidays doing full-time work experience??!). So that's very exciting for me and I can't wait to start that part of my life!

Fun uni stuff!

Well! I'm in exams at the moment, which is probably my least favourite part of uni life. This is my second last exam block so I really should be savouring it, shouldn't I?!

I thought I'd share some really fun stuff I've done for one of my engineering subjects this semester. It's called 'systems engineering and design management' and we basically got to come up with a product, develop it to concept stage and then market it. One of the assessments was a You Tube video.... so without further ado, here are some of the videos from my class (which consists of chemical and mechanical engineers). Some are just hilarious, so enjoy!

Rach

Texas City Explosion

Over the summer I worked for BP refinery at Bulwer Island in Brisbane. Apart from learning a whole heap of technical stuff, I also learnt a great deal about process safety. At a refinery (or any process plant!) process safety is so important because you want everyone to go home in the same state that they came to work, as well as keeping your equipment in good order. Almost 5 years ago, there was an explosion at BP's refinery in Texas City and this event shaped views on process safety, not only at BP, but in the industry as well. 15 workers died and 170 were injured. I thought I'd share a video about this explosion. Look out for ways in which you think it could have been avoided.

Efficiency

This is pretty unrelated to anything, but here is a great video I found. A lot of what engineering is about is finding ways to do things more efficiently. I'm so tempted to do this though, I don't have my mother's knack when it comes to folding a t-shirt... Have a good one!

Do you have 'The Knack'????

Busy busy busy

Whoa, it's been busy!! I've been back at uni for a few weeks now; it got pretty full-on very quickly!! But it's lovely to see everyone again and get back to a routine. The rest of my vacation work was good, I got to spend a fortnight at Collinsville Mine in the Bowen Basin. I'm a bit of a city girl, so it was cool to live in a mining town for a bit and get some 'black stuff' under my fingernails. I spent most of my time at the coal wash plant, where I looked at their lime-dosing system (which corrects the pH of their process streams) and their pumping system. It's nice to apply the things you learn at uni to practice!

I've heard about this new show that's coming onto the ABC on Sunday nights called 'Dirt Game': http://www.abc.net.au/tv/comingsoon.htm#?vid=video1 .It's about a team of Aussies trying to save a mining company and shows all the dangers associated with mining (by the look of it, it's underground mining). I think it's a great idea for a show!! Everyone wants to be a doctor or lawyer because they see these dramatic/funny/sexy shows that make it look like such a great profession. It's about time they made something about miners (even if it does look a little over-dramatic). I'm really keen to see how they portray the industry; by the preview it looks like it shows some issues with safety and women's equality. We'll have to wait and see how they do the sexy part of the show though, because believe me- no one can really pull off bright orange high vis shirts and steel cap boots!

Vac work and fun times...

Hi everyone!
Today I finished the 3rd week of my vacation work with Thiess. So far it's been really good; I've been working at Southbank and have also been to visit their workshop at Archerfield and a coal wash plant at the Tarong mine. I'm working with 3 other engineering uni students and so it's been a lot of fun. We all help each other out when we're not really sure what we're doing (which is quite a bit haha). Leading up to Christmas we've been helping their estimators calculate rates for the different vehicles on mine sites. It was really cool to then go to their workshop and see these big trucks in real life. I got to sit in a CAT 793 which is absolutely MASSIVE (I only come up to half way up one wheel!).

Now I have a two week break with the fam and friends and after new years I should be heading out to more distant mine sites for longer periods and now that we've settled in we should be getting some juicy projects to work on for the rest of our vacation work. Until then, I think I'll head down to Byron and over to Morton Island for some sun and some quality relaxation time... mmmmmm i'm excited....