I am an Engineer, also my Graduate School stuff

Yep, that's right. After 4 and a half years of hard work I am finally an engineer. I finished up all my bachelor's degree last Friday. I'll be receiving my diploma here shortly. Unfortunately I didn't walk with the rest of the seniors that graduated. I didn't want the trouble. It's expensive and it would have been difficult for my family to get up here to see it, especially me Dad. Plus I am continuing on to get my Master's degree, so I'll walk when I get that. I am happy that I was able to do that, To be the first person in my family to get a college degree. Myles, Cole, Ryan and I made a good senior design team. Our algae project didn't exactly do what we wanted it to but we had fun and learned a lot and got experience in growing algae. I think that I will be hanging out with them a lot during the summer.

The other big piece of news is that i was accepted into the Biological Engineering Graduate Program here at USU. It is an amazing opportunity for me. The best part is that they have lined up a thesis project for me to work on. I am really excited for it, it is going to give me a lot of experience. Here is the project in lame man's terms. The wastewater system here in Cache Valley is a Lagoon based system. It is an open air system that uses microbes to remove the Carbon from the water before it is released into Cutler Reservoir. The issue with this system is that it's not removing other nutrients from the water, most importantly phosphorous. This causes eutrophication, which is nutrient pollution. The plants and algae get into the water system and use up all of the oxygen in the water, which suffocates the animal life, killing them. It is a big issue. Our team is researching the possibility of using algae to treat this system. It is going to happen, it works. It will cost the taxpayers one third of what a chemical treatment plant would cost. The other really cool thing is that the products of this method are bio fuels, such as methane gas or biodiesel and fertilizer. So not only are we taking care of a major problem but we are also making useful byproducts as well, making the city money, which relieves tax payers of some of the cost to treat their wastewater.

So my project deals specifically with pharmaceuticals. I will be testing the water to find out what pharmaceuticals are present in the wastewater and where it goes throughout the process. Ideally we want to see if the algae absorb the pharmaceuticals, therefore removing them from the wastewater. The second part of my project will be to see what affect algae containing pharmaceuticals has on the methanagenesis of the algae biomass. It is really an exciting project. The other great part of it is that I am getting paid to do the research. I'll be making between 17 and 18 thousand dollars a year. That will pay for grad school and for my rent and give me plenty to live on. It is such a blessing for me.