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CITRIS construction under way
MAKING PROGRESS:
With the addition of a 180-foot tower crane, the pace of the CITRIS Headquarters
building project is increasing dramatically. The crane’s 199-foot boom
will allow the contractor to set 1,426 tons of structural steel to every corner
of the building. In a few months, builders plan to add a construction elevator,
which will allow the 200-plus workers a day to reach the upper floors. When the
31-month project is complete in early 2009, CITRIS Headquarters will stand seven
stories tall, contain 14,000 cubic yards of structural concrete and feature 146,000
square feet of space. PEG SKORPINSKI PHOTO
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One great thing about studying engineering in Europe, explains Eric
Schwartz, is it’s all in metric. “That was absolutely wonderful,” says
the CEE senior who spent 10 months last year as an international student
at the University of Birmingham in England as part of Berkeley Programs
for Study Abroad. During his time there, Schwartz discovered other
niceties, such as the “cuppa” (cup of tea shared with friends),
shawarma (Middle Eastern pita sandwich) and ease of travel.
“I gained a lot of respect for Europeans,” he says. “I
think they’re pretty mature. There isn’t a great feeling
toward America over there right now, but they distinguish individual
Americans from the country.” [FULL STORY]
Meet Engineering Physics senior Michelle Yong. As the new president
of the Engineers’ Joint Council (EJC), Yong leads an organization
that oversees some 25 engineering student societies and competition
teams, as well as a budget of $29,000. Like any well-trained engineer,
she’s
already identified the inefficiencies in the EJC system and is working
to correct them. “Our key strategy this year is to focus on a few
things and do those things well, rather than spreading ourselves thin
with events and activities,” she explains. [FULL STORY]
Mark Meltzer (B.S.’72 EECS) started skydiving in 1968 as a freshman
at Berkeley. A love of classic planes, not adolescent thrills, lured him. “I’ve
always been fascinated by aviation,” he says. “I wanted to
fly, but the cost for flight lessons was beyond my means. One day I was
down at the Oakland Airport looking at derelict DC-6s and Stratocruisers.
A sign on an old shack caught my attention. For $50, they’d teach
you how to jump from a plane. I went in and asked what kind of aircraft
they had because I was far more interested in the planes. They said Cessnas,
but once you got better, you could jump out of bigger planes. I said sign
me up.”
“I was definitely nervous that first time. Back then, we had nightly
lessons. It was grueling. The instructors would scream at you. It was
more like a military operation. The purpose, I think, was to get you
used to stressful situations so you didn’t panic. On that first
jump, we were attached to a static line, which is a cord that deploys
the chute as you fall away from the plane. There was a girl in front
of me, and she froze. [FULL STORY]
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