Week of November 28

  A guaranteed way to get the job of your dreams   

http://growingleaders.com/blog/first-soft-skill-develop-students/

     This article goes into detail in the discussion of youth and how they can find themselves in trouble when applying and maintaining a job. Employers state that they find youth too loud, too forward, too self-absorbed, and lacking self-awareness. This all boils down to not having any social intelligence. As defined, social intelligence is defined as the capacity to effectively negotiate complex social relationships and environments. Social intelligence is knowing when or when not to speak up. It it also knowing when to talk about yourself. It is not however, taking advantage of your new job and acting like you are the best employee that the company has ever had. Remember, your first priority is doing the job you were assigned. If there is ever a time when youth should reign in their emotions and get to work is during this learning period of your first job. 

     This article made me realize that social skills are probably the most important part of every job. Knowing how to have a successful conversation with your boss and other coworkers is the key to having a long career with a single company. If every at the job likes you because you are easy-going and well versed, then you have just practically hired yourself. According to the article, this is want employers want. They want somebody that will fit into their company with no hiccups and who will not overstep their boundaries.

Week of November 14, 21

https://1drv.ms/p/s!Ah-arZ30T3i0gSBI2bJKg4BwdvMT

Week of November 7

     Keep Forsyth Beautiful is very much a partner in my education because they foster my development into the field that I want to find a career in. In my opinion, they provide greater education than any class that I take in school because I am actually interested in the stuff that I am learning in my internship, compared to the stuff that I learn in school.

     I have learned about several careers in my internship, including Storm Water Runoff Maintenance, Land water runoff stakesmen, and drinking water facility manager. All of these jobs pertain, in some form or fashion, to the Environmental Engineering field. All of these jobs I see myself possibly going into. My mentor has done a superb job making sure that I obtain as much exposure to any, and every, career that falls into the Environmental Engineering field.

    I have met several goals so far. The first on being, exposure to many different fields so that I can come up with my Essential Question to display at my presentation later in the year. Some goals however have changed. Initially my mentor and I thought that we would have more time to explore possible careers in the environmental engineering field, but as time went by our goals changed to really being this essential question project. This project has really taken off in the last week due to my discovering of this question after some talk with some folks at Sawnee Mountain Preserve.

Week of October 31

     My name is Phillip, and I am a senior at Forsyth Central High School. I have been raised to love and understand the benefits that the environment offers us. That being said, I am fully aware that the environment is in the worst shape that it has been in. I chose to pursue a career in environmental engineering because of this. I want to be able to say that I helped the environment when most other people were doing the exact opposite. With this in mind, I believe that Keep Forsyth Beautiful believes like I believe and also wants to help the environment in ways that will prolong its existence.

     At Keep Forsyth Beautiful, I take part in numerous activities. I started out the year touring a recycling facility belonging to Advanced Disposal. Then I moved to visiting waste water facilities across the county, where I saw the different methods of water filtration, including biological and chemical. Then, I got to understand the flip side of that coin when I visited a drinking water facility where I got to see how they take the water out of the environment and transform it, chemically, into the tap water that comes out of our sinks. I have also taken part in many other activities, including Code Enforcement and Storm Water Management. With Forsyth County Engineering, I partook in the latter of the last two, along with the task of correcting and accepting runoff water plans on newly designed housing lots. With my mentor at Keep Forsyth Beautiful, we have began scheduled maintenance of methane flares at the old landfill in North Forsyth, as well as collecting waste that people have dumped on the side of the road and in creeks.

     Next year, I will be starting at Kennesaw State University Marietta Campus, to begin my journey to a degree in Environmental Engineering. My mentorship will help me tremendously in that I will be able to have a decent grasp several of the possible career fields that I could go into, after I earn a college degree.

     Below are some of the activities that I have taken part of.

Above is my mentor and I.

Week of October 24

What I have learned about my internship

     To be honest, I thought that Keep Forsyth Beautiful was just an organization that went around planting trees at various schools and picking up trash on the side of the road. But, upon diving into my internship I have discovered that Keeping Forsyth beautiful involves much more. This includes actions like monitoring methane levels in a local landfill and monitoring oxygen levels in local streams. Now, I am really enjoying my internship and all of the various activities and people that I get to interact with every week.

     This internship surprised me with all of the different jobs that I get to take part in once a week. I have done everything from touring a Advanced Disposal recycling facility and viewing a water filtration facility to monitoring the water coming out of dams throughout the county. I have really enjoyed getting to experience, however quick, the different careers that I may go into.

    From the routine parts of this internship, I have learned what goes on behind the scenes to make the job run smoothly, from all the phone calls to the paper work that I have seen take place over this internship. Now, credit to my mentor for making my 3 hours a week as action-packed as possible with as little as the day to day work as possible. But, the little "boring" stuff that I see is important to witness because that is what happens at every job. There is always the fun, but the less fun usually happens more often. To sum it up, I now know why the common saying is that you have to love what you do, or you will not work very long there.

Week of October 17

     The article that I chose is going to be very useful in my research because I intend to find the different fields of engineering that use, transform, or help the environment in any way, shape, or form. This article, being what it is about, fits perfectly into this quest because of how Shah used his engineering mindset to further the enforcement of ocean fishing. With this in mind, I intend to use this article and others to understand how large of a role that the environment plays in every different engineering field. The article adds just another application that the environment provides for other fields of engineering to focus on.


     This article opened my mind to better understand that environmental engineering is not the only field that involves working with the environment. I hope to find more articles like this one to discover other people, like me, who enjoy working with the environment. I appreciate when other people involve their passions with the environment because that is what I see myself doing in the near future.

Week of October 3

Annotated Bibliography Graphic Organizer

Phillip Thompson

Source / Bibliography: (APA Format)	Bloch, H. (2015, December 17). The Rocket-Science     Environmentalist. Retrieved October 14, 2016, from http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rocket-science-environmentalist-1450368433
Annotation:	Becoming an environmental fanatic is something that everyone can do. Just like Mr. Shelbe, who was a rocket-scientist originally, realized his fanaticism after attending several environmental seminars. He discovered that he could use his aeronautical skillset to help advance the field of environmental science and engineering. Shah combines the fields of mobile technology, satellite data, and drones to monitor and regulate the overfishing all across the world’s oceans.
Potential Quotes:	“Shah combines the fields of mobile technology, satellite data, and drones to better protect the environment.” “People used to wonder, who’s this engineering guy coming here to do things.” “He envisions an Internet of environmental things in which entire nature reserves can be connected via smart technology to spot and reduce threats.”
Assessment:	This source is credible because it was published by Wall Street Journal. The author also seems to write with a very objective tone, which implies that she does not have any bias on this topic because she is looking at just the facts of the situation, alone.
Reflection:	This source will be best used as a “recruitment” tactic in that Shah being a rocket-scientist, which is very far from environmental science, can become an engineer in the field of the environment.