Dear Alumni and Friends of Ole Miss Civil Engineering,

As you know, civil engineering at Ole Miss is a relatively small program and
students and professors have the opportunity to have strong and intimate
interactions. Students often write back to the faculty after they graduate.
The following email to a professor was received a few days ago from a
student graduated last year. I was very moved by the experience mentioned in
the email. I think you will be too, so I am sharing it with you.

I got the permission from the student to forward this email. In order not to
expose the student and people mentioned in the email, I have edited out a
few references. Otherwise, please read the email in its original form.

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Dear Dr. xxxxx,

This is xxxxxx. It's been a while. I graduated xxxxxx and was one of your
students. Maybe not the best one, but I tell you one thing, I definitely
learned a lot from you.

You were so right about a couple of things . . . you were right to make us
learn Shear/Moment Diagrams. I've been continuously surprised at how much I
need to use them. And I've impressed my current employer with my knowledge
of structural engineering theory. My supervisor recently told me the most
important thing she learned as a structural engineer . . . and that she
wished she'd learned it in school or that someone had bothered to tell her
in the first few years she was an engineer . . . it was about how, when you
design using reinforced concrete, you always want the concrete to fail
before the steel. She said that and I went on to draw her the stress/strain
diagram for a reinforced concrete beam, and I talked about the min/max
reinforcement ratio. She was shocked I knew all of that!

And I have you to thank! You taught us that in our very first week in
Concrete Design.

Can you believe it . . . I'm already the lead structural engineer at my
company. One of the owners is a P.E. but I essentially perform all of the
duties of lead structural except stamping the drawings. Everything from
proposals to design to project management to construction assistance.

Sometimes it's scary business, but I have a lot of really wonderful,
talented people working with me. One of the designers in particular is
amazing. He's been

doing this for xxxx years, and he really knows his stuff. Between myself and
him, we can always figure out what to do. I'm very lucky.

It's been a situation in which I had no choice but to learn quickly . . .
and I'm still learning every day.

I wrote you for several reasons.

First, to let you know how much I appreciate the things you taught me, and
to let you know, that for sure, you are on the right track. Keep doing what
you're doing! And I especially thank you for exposing us to ACI code. That
learning has been invaluable and so much of my job is ensuring compliance
with different building/design codes. In my work, I use ACI 318-02, ASCE
7-98, IBC 2000, IBC 2003, and ACI 530/530.1 on a daily basis.

Also, I wanted to volunteer to come and speak to some of your engineering
students. I thought perhaps that they might find it interesting to speak to
someone who is new to the field and has a clear perspective on how my
education and the professional world connect. You probably have many
professionals with far more experience than I do volunteer to do this all
the time, but I wanted to let you know that if you think it might be useful
to your students, I'd be happy to lend my services. I know I would have
enjoyed speaking to someone who was new to the field and could tell me what
it was going to be like right after I graduated.

I work between 55 and 70 hours per week, so I'd probably only be able to
come on a Saturday. As it is now, I can't make plans to be away from the
office. I get so many phone calls in a day, emergencies in the field that
usually require immediate answers and require me to jump up and go to the
construction site as soon as I receive the phone call.

===============================================

Now you have finished reading the email, I would like to use this
opportunity to tell you this. Although it is the plan of the department to
grow the enrollment a little, and I hope to report it in a few weeks, the
faculty of civil engineering has a very clear picture of where we need and
want to go. These close teacher-student relations and strong technical
program are the characteristics of the department. Under no circumstance
these characteristics will be diluted or sacrificed. We will grow very
carefully and never lose sight of it!

I wish you a good summer.

Alex

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Alexander H.-D. Cheng
Professor and Chair
Department of Civil Engineering
University of Mississippi
P.O. Box 1848
University, MS 38677-1848
Tel: 662-915-5362
Fax: 662-915-5523
Email: acheng@olemiss.edu
URL: http://www.olemiss.edu/~acheng/
http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/civil_eng/