Jobs

[scott]

I'll be graduating from the U of M in December and the job market still isn't the greatest. I stayed for my masters degree, hoping it would get better, but I don't think it's improved much. I was just wondering if anyone owns (not likely) or has any tips on any companies looking to hire a recently graduated aerospace engineer. I figured it's worth a chance and might be more likely to happen than Chris' free dry suit.

Scott

[Chris]

Yeah, the free dry suit hasn't panned out yet... still waiting Good luck to you on your job hunt though, wish you the best!

[jasondbaker]

Hey Scott, you could always stay in school for your doctorate!

I think the US aerospace market has been getting beat up for a while now. Good luck!

[scott]

I've thought about it, but am starting to get sick of school. My department is currently paying for my schooling and also paying for me to do research and would continue to do so for my doctarate, but I think I would go crazy before I finish. Besides, I need to find a job somewhere warmer and with higher water temps and better visibility.

[Gramps]

Better luck sniffing around on cavediver.net. That's the Florida crowd...BTW - isn't there some goverment agency that does space work have a facility down there?

[DanL]

How about NASA at Houston? They have a huge tank that they use to develop and test space hardware (aero engineer - perfect!) and train astronauts in simulated weightlessness (neutral bouyancy). The dive crew, in addition to developing and testing equip, serves as training and safety divers for the astronauts who train in the tank in really dry suits - their space gear.
Just a thought, but what a great job....
Dan

[scott]

I'ld love to work for NASA, but I haven't found too many openings on their website. A couple years ago, two teams from my department went to Houston to fly on NASA's "Vomit Comet". It's a KC-135 that has been slighltly modified and basicalliy is a giant roller coaster. As it's going down, you experience zero gravity. We flew a couple of experiments on it. The first time we hit zero gravity, I thought it felt exactly like diving. I was holding on to the frame of our experiment and kind of had a flashback to holding on to platforms and floating around. We also toured the neutral bouyancy labs. Those were amazing. I think they were around a max of 40 feet deep and had mock ups of the shuttle and space station in there. If NASA ever needsto raise money, they could just open it up to divers. I'ld definitely pay to go in there.

Scott