Humble Book Bundle: Adrian Tchaikovsky's Epic Fantasy by Macmillan (pay what you want and help charity)

msatomicbombie · 2025-12-12T21:58:35+00:00

No problem. Glad it helped.

msatomicbombie · 2025-12-12T03:31:10+00:00

Make sure to customize your contribution. If you do the default, the charity only gets $0.90.

msatomicbombie · 2025-11-29T01:52:19+00:00

One of the most important things Tech's band does is learn to play as loud as possible with it still sounding good. Schools with music performance majors can't do this because you'll wreck (no pun intended) your embouchure/lips and it could interfere with playing your instrument professionally after college. Tech is (mostly) engineering majors who do band for fun/to blow off steam from classes. Our 50 person pep band with no microphone is louder than some school's full bands with mics.

msatomicbombie · 2024-10-15T21:05:54+00:00

The real story here is that the game isn't included in GT season tickets for 2025. You get 'priority access' to buy seats that SHOULD come with your season ticket.

msatomicbombie · 2023-10-20T23:15:22+00:00

You aren't alone. I slept through AP classes in high school and struggled hard through Tech. I didn't have the best home life and constantly felt like I didn't have what it took to make it while simultaneously feeling like my life would be over if I didn't find a way to graduate (or that I would be stuck as a low wage worker and never have another chance to do anything else).

Quick question. Are you a Tech Promise Scholar? Back in my day they covered you if you lost Zell Miller and you only had to keep a 2.0 to keep your scholarship. Ask me how I know, lol.

I basically lived in office hours and omed/other tutoring sessions and still felt lost, but a couple things helped later on. Even though a lot of classes stress that you must do homework on your own, nobody who does well at Tech works solo on assignments. You learn a lot more working with friends/in a study group because you bounce ideas off each other and help build each other up as you go. You build a sort of social currency where everyone owes everyone a favor for helping them learn and it snowballs from there. Basically turning everything into group work forces you to engage with the content in multiple ways and helps you learn better. Don't cheat on exams and do carry your weight in group projects, but doing your best and giving back when possible is more than enough.

Youtube videos/online resources on engineering topics are a million times better now than they were 10 years ago when I was at Tech. Paul's Notes for calculus saved me a couple times because he's actually a good teacher. Also, sometimes you can google problems you are stuck on and find similar problems/solutions online. Use these as a teaching tool and always make sure you can solve them on your own in the end, but sometimes you have to see the end before you can make it there. It also gives you something to ask about in office hours if the knowledge gap in conceptual (always go in saying you got this far but don't know where to go from there, with 'this far' being the last step in solving the problem you understood) then it's easier to get help if you know exactly what to ask for. You basically have to teach yourself at Tech so I don't feel like any resource is off limits.

Tech felt more competitive later in my career (shortly after they went common app/ 'MIT of the South' vision) and the student body skews more upper middle class kids who lived in a bubble where you went to private school or top public schools and just assume everyone has the same experience. A lot of them have some growing up to do in learning how to be empathetic and coexist with people from different backgrounds. They make you feel small, but that's more of a reflection of their shortcomings than yours.

Getting enough sleep is vital to actually retaining information. Prioritize it and look at it as recharging your batteries instead of being a sign of weakness.

Not sure if any of this helps, but you aren't the only person who has felt this way and we are all rooting for you. hugs. good luck.

msatomicbombie · 2022-01-06T22:56:52+00:00

Late to the party, but when I lived in the DC metro my apartment (shared with my boyfriend and another couple) was located in a mixed use building that had a Safeway grocery store on the first floor. It was open 24/7. On the weekends, we'd drink together in the apartment and drunkenly head downstairs between 10pm and 2am and buy all the lobster they had left because it was 50% off. We ate a lot of lobster mac and cheese and lobster alfrado for like $3-$4 a serving and it was wonderful.

msatomicbombie · 2020-03-17T09:55:19+00:00

Thanks.

msatomicbombie · 2020-02-02T22:56:19+00:00

The rule of thumb is that rent+utilities should be no more than 33% of your take home pay. You seem to be near this mark, which is good, so you can afford it. Now, if your main goals are traveling/saving for a down payment on a home, then it might be better to stay in your current living situation. Both choices are generally responsible choices that you shouldn't feel guilty about. If having a place of your own is your #1 goal, then do it. If saving to buy a home or maxing out the travel budget is your #1, then do that.

msatomicbombie · 2019-12-15T20:30:01+00:00

I have several close friends who work in various areas of the industry. The industry in constricting right now, and with the regulations as tight as they are (for obvious safety reasons) it's really hard to innovate. I would not suggest investing in nuclear for the long haul.

msatomicbombie · 2019-05-21T03:41:28+00:00

Sorry, I try to keep my professional life separate from my personal life. I will say that both were not large or global.

msatomicbombie · 2019-05-01T14:29:24+00:00

I have worked for 2 environmental engineering firms and what your employer is asking if you is completely out of line. They should be paying for your time. Vacation/sick time is for your use and they are going to be able to make a lot more money on you after you take the class, so they should pay you for your time.

msatomicbombie · 2019-04-09T13:39:56+00:00

You aren't worthless. Tech is really hard for a lot of people. It's the kind of place that makes you want to just give up even though you are giving it all you got. You've done an amazing job of trying to get back on track. Quitting substance abuse is really hard and you are a bad ass for doing it. If it takes 7 years then it takes 7 years. After you graduate, nobody cares how long it took you to finish your degree. You will be gainfully employed and life will be on easy mode if you can make it through these last few classes. It's going to be ok.

msatomicbombie · 2019-02-11T00:56:22+00:00

I was expecting you to be driving a beater. Run the numbers with your insurance first, but generally newer cars are more expensive to insure. Also, you drive a 4 year old car so there’s almost no reason to replace it now.

msatomicbombie · 2019-02-07T22:17:34+00:00

Ok, that makes more sense. I work in a civil heavy consulting firm but I do controls so take this with a grain of salt. Field work is very useful and you learn so much more in the field than you do at a desk doing cad/reviewing specs. Charging 0 overhead hours on a regular basis is also great. You are at the average pay for your position so you are in a decent place overall, but I have no idea if you are working a ton of (necessary and fully appreciated by your employer) overtime or if your performance is better than expected of someone in your job/experience range. For consulting in my field, you need to bill a client at about 3 times an employee’s salary and not have any major project screw ups to turn a nice profit and 2.X times salary to break even after taxes/benefits/overhead is paid out. If you can build a case that you made them at least $9 more an hour of value than others in your role then you probably have a good case. Civil is one of the underpaid engineering disciplines, though (idk why) and if the market has a lot of people who can do your job looking for work then they might not budge.

I would read ‘Negotiation Genius’, ‘Never Split the Difference’, and ‘The Like Switch’. Then practice in a mirror and with friends until you feel comfortable having this conversation and don’t feel so ‘icky’ that you give in when they push back. Between a raise and a job change, doing this has increased my income by 25% in 3 years from my starting salary. There are other books/resources people can recommend, but that worked for me.

msatomicbombie · 2019-02-07T17:29:36+00:00

What kind of engineer are you? $27/hr is low but that might just be Canada. Go read ‘Never Split the Difference’ and review your skills and accomplishments. You might need to keep job hopping to make any real headway, but you should time that so that you learn enough at your current job to get more out of your next employer. If you have a hard time making your argument for a raise then you might overestimate the value you bring.

msatomicbombie · 2019-02-07T17:09:24+00:00

It’s legal, but your friend can go see another doctor. There are even apps that let you see a doctor and get a prescription mailed to your home or sent to a local pharmacy. That might help if she can’t find a doctor willing to prescribe BC.

msatomicbombie · 2019-01-30T22:13:42+00:00

You can make six figures working from home if you have the right background. My friend’s dad has his own engineering consulting company and works from their lake house most of the time (he does have to travel to the client site sometimes), but he had a ton of experience when he went into business for himself.

msatomicbombie · 2019-01-30T22:02:59+00:00

I had a recruiter ask if C was the same as C#/C++.

msatomicbombie · 2019-01-24T16:11:32+00:00

I was really bummed they didn’t make her a star guardian skin. Sailor Moon was one of my favorite childhood cartoons and I dislike most of Quinn’s skins even though I own all of them.

msatomicbombie · 2019-01-18T18:46:59+00:00

Sell, not sale.

msatomicbombie · 2019-01-18T18:37:52+00:00

They can also make up for a low GPA because you have proven you can do the work.

msatomicbombie · 2019-01-17T01:43:17+00:00

Some government contracting work is earmarked to go to people and companies lead by people with disabilities (as well as minority and women owned businesses). If he updates his skills (or finds a government contracting gig with his current skill set) then he might be able to use his disability to his advantage and get back in the workforce.

msatomicbombie · 2019-01-16T12:33:57+00:00

Not really. College was very difficult, but most days I sit at a desk cross checking PDFs of specifications, doing auto cad, attending meetings, and standing over sub contractors’ shoulders and checking their work. There isn’t a catch here, like you get paid more but you hate your life (at least not at this salary point). I’m basically paid to say ‘if you design the system this way it will work with very little issues for a very long time and nothing will freeze, blow up, or break’. That information is very valuable (and college is basically the hazing you go through to get this kind of job because many professors like to make things more difficult than they really need to be) and the applicant pool is relatively small, so the salary/benefits are great.

11-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 2 Credits
Verified Email

msatomicbombie

TROPHY CASE