Month: April 2019
Notre Dame Fire
The Notre Dame Cathedral recently caught on fire. The spire faced the most damage, as it completely collapsed due to the fire. The cathedral was in the middle of a renovation project, which may have caused the fire. The cause of the fire is undergoing investigation currently. The investigation is determining whether the fire was caused intentionally by somebody, one of the companies working on the cathedral not following proper procedures, or if the fire was completely coincidental. It was required that contractors using electrical tools or working with heat had to stay on site for an extra two hours after finishing. The cathedral was not given automatic sprinklers and the attic space did not have fire-breaking walls, which could have prevented the spread of the fire. The information above was written by the New York Times at the following link.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/notre-dame-appears-structurally-sound-after-fire-as-investigators-look-for-cause/ar-BBVYTqC?ocid=spartanntp#image=BBVYTqC_1|1
I do not see any bias in the article. The writers were upset that the cathedral suffered damage but did not try to blame any specific person or group for the fire. The article is only giving an assessment of what some of the safety features put in place were and included some of the effort to fundraise to rebuild the cathedral. This is an important article because the Notre Dame Cathedral is centuries old. The cathedral survived revolutionaries and world wars before burning, and it is still not completely gone. The cathedral will require a massive amount of money to rebuild, due to how big the cathedral is and the artwork inside of the cathedral. The wood used is very hard to find in France now and the stone used is some of the best available. In addition, any stained glass that was destroyed will be a lot of money.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/notre-dame-cathedral-rebuild-in-paris-could-take-40-years/
Many people are donating to help the cause, but the costs required to build the cathedral could hurt France. If the investigation determines that the fire was caused by the engineering company in charge of the renovation, more requirements may be put in place to prevent this from happening again. It also impacts the engineering of other ancient buildings, because countries may pay to have other building renovated to put better fire systems, walls that prevent the spread of fire, and security inside of them. The fire affects France, potentially engineering requirements, other national treasures, natural resources needed to rebuild, animals that may get pushed out of their homes due to the natural resources needed, companies that are being brought to rebuild the cathedral, and the catholic church.
I believe that the cathedral does need rebuilt. It has been a symbol of France for so long and represents their country as much as the White House or Statue of Liberty represents America. However, I believe that France should research what they will need to rebuild the cathedral before they go in to such a massive project. While many people have already donated to help, the project will cost France a lot of money, so they should make sure that rebuilding it too quickly will not hurt their economy. I also believe that they need to consult environmental engineers to ensure that they will not hurt the environment by trying to get too many resources too quickly. It is also important that if the investigation finds that the company doing the renovation did not follow proper procedures, proper consequences are given to show other engineers or construction workers that saving time or money in one place could have consequences so it does not happen again.
Leadership Council
This semester I was elected to the STEM EE Scholars leadership council. While I have been in leadership roles before, I have never been in a position that I had to create events for such a large number of people. Being in the position taught me how to take charge, properly use time management, and work with a council of others to put together large-scale events. At the beginning of the semester, everybody was new to the position, so the first event put on was slightly disorganized and not ready by the time people were showing up. However, by the end of the semester we were planning events weeks in advance so we could have everything ready by the time the event would happen. I was required to take harder classes this semester than in the fall, so sometimes it was challenging to get to events and help plan them. However, as a group we decided the times that would work best for everybody and met every other week so the council members would still have time to get their coursework completed. We also had to work well as a council rather than making decisions by ourselves. This was helpful due to having to plan and supervise many events. The council planned events together and one or two people would take charge to supervise and get any materials needed to run the event. This also helped with time management, because if one person had a busy schedule that week they were not required to attend or supervise the event, and they could take responsibility of another event. Finally being in the council taught me how to improvise. I was the Game and Sports Coordinator, so I tried to put together a volleyball team for the scholars league. However, not many people were interested in volleyball and the other scholars programs did not put together teams either. This gave me the idea to host a march madness bracket challenge with the members of our scholars program instead. We had about twenty people join and many people enjoyed following the games in hopes to win a gift card by the end of the tournament.