A Surprise Graduate Degree

 

It’s not every day you find out a bona fide university long ago awarded you a graduate degree you never knew about. Not some honorary degree but a legitimate Master of Arts degree in engineering.  Well, I just discovered it happened to me.  And before you start questioning its authenticity, let me assure you it is indeed valid.  Here’s the story.  I did my undergraduate work at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California (it’s a good school, traditionally ranked #1 or #2 in undergraduate engineering programs by US News and World Report).  I could have just gone for a B.S. degree in engineering, but the school offered another option.  Stay on for a fifth year and earn a Master of Engineering degree.  It sounded attractive, so at the beginning of my junior year, I applied and was accepted.  The only catch was that Harvey Mudd was only accredited to be an undergraduate institution; they couldn’t award graduate degrees.  So, in some arcane way, they teamed up with Claremont Graduate University across the street to award the degree. The story I was told was that at graduation after my fifth year, Harvey Mudd would award my Master of Engineering degree first, then follow with my bachelor’s degree.  That way the ME degree would qualify as my first degree, which would allow them to retain their undergraduate accreditation.  And that’s what happened.  At the graduation ceremony, I received a nice diploma stating that Harvey Mudd College was conferring on me a Master of Engineering degree. Hidden away underneath it in the same presentation folder was the diploma for my B.S. degree in engineering.  I never really understood what role Claremont Graduate University played in all this until I recently received a letter from their alumni association.  They were asking for a donation because I was a CGU graduate with a Master of Arts degree in Engineering.  Having never heard this before, I contacted their alumni association and was assured that, yes indeed, I have an MA degree in engineering from their university.  At this point in my career it’s too late to have any impact on my resume, but it’s a nice little surprise—two master’s degrees for the price of one!  And by the way, Harvey Mudd ended their M.E. program some years later because of the complexity in administering it.  The only downside is that I now have one more school I should give donations to every year.

Staying in Touch in the Wilderness

 

Yes, we’re in the middle of a pandemic that has pretty much locked everything down, but that shouldn’t stop you from planning your next trip into the wilderness.  I’m already plotting a trip to southern Utah, even though I’m not sure when it will be.  I’m fairly confident that as usual, it will be a solo trip.  And that brings up an important point.  I’m not as young as I used to be, and while I’m still in reasonably good shape, I need to be prepared for potential hazards.

When I’m out alone in the wilderness, I subscribe to the philosophy espoused by the author Edward Abbey: “accidents are forbidden.”  But just to be on the safe side, I’ve added a new GPS receiver to my backpack: a Garmin GPSmap 66i with the InReach satellite messaging feature.  As long as I have access to the sky, in an emergency I can send an SOS message that will scramble a search-and-rescue team anywhere in the world.  And if I just want to text my wife to let her know I’m doing fine, I can do so pretty much as if I were texting on my cell phone.  The neat thing about this is because it uses the Iridium satellite network to send the messages, I don’t have to be within the range of a cell phone service provider.

I’ve found my subscription to the inReach service to be affordable and well worth the cost.  I use the Freedom Safety Plan, which allows me to only pay the monthly fee for the months I use it and suspend it for other months.  The $15 monthly fee allows me to send unlimited SOS messages, up to 10 ordinary texts, and an unlimited number of preprogrammed texts to specific people.  I won’t go through a full review of the inReach service here, I’ll only point out that if you spend much time in the wilderness away from cell phone coverage you should consider investing in something like this.  There are several manufacturers of similar products and I don’t get commissions from any of them, so feel free to purchase whichever one best meets your needs.

Uranium Country

Today is the 75^th anniversary of the detonation of the nuclear bomb over Hiroshima.  That event had a major impact on the canyon country of southern Utah, although it was not obvious at the time.  The start of the nuclear age suddenly put uranium in high demand, and this was the place to find it.  The US Atomic Energy Commission supported anyone who wanted to prospect by offering guaranteed minimum prices for ore. The commission built many of the dirt roads now popular with off-roaders and promised $10,000 bonuses for new finds.

By the early 1950s hordes of both amateurs and professionals were combing the landscape with handheld Geiger counters. Most didn't know what they were doing and went broke, but a few got rich, at least temporarily. The prospector who probably had the most influence early on was Charlie Steen, an unemployed geologist who couldn’t afford a Geiger counter but used his knowledge of geology to find the first big strike in 1952.  His Mi Vida mine produced hundreds of millions of dollars of ore, making him a rich man and the most influential person in Moab, Utah.  But frivolous spending sprees and ill-advised investments eventually drove him broke.

As part of the research I’m doing for my book on canyon country, I decided to pay a visit to his Mi Vida mine, long since closed down.  It was many miles down rough dirt roads, and I took wrong turns twice along the way.  But I eventually arrived and was able to explore its remaining relics.  The mine itself has been blocked with tons of dirt to prevent entry, but rusting equipment remains.  I was surprised at how small the site was; I had been expecting something covering many acres.  I subscribe to the premise that if you really want to see something off the beaten path you need to figure out how to get there on your own, so I won’t post directions here, but here are a couple of views from my visit.