[meteorite-list] University Experience :P

From: Galactic Stone & Ironworks <*meteoritemike_at_meteoritecentral.com*> Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:02:21 -0500 Message-ID: <CAKBPJW_468dydagGzSmw50Hc9Fke7Sg0QJZB0LVZ3S_YSHKrDw_at_mail.gmail.com> · meteoritemike_at_meteoritecentral.com

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Galactic Stone & Ironworks - Meteorites & Amber (Michael Gilmer)
Website - http://www.galactic-stone.com
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On 1/16/12, Erik Fisler <phxerik at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Well Hello there fellow list members!
>
> I'd like to step out of the shadows and share some of my experiences now
> that I'm working my way through my junior year of my space exploration
> degree at ASU.
>
> Being that I completed my associates degree from a community college (which
> a very friendly and welcoming environment) and have now transferred to ASU,
> I have noticed some interesting things in the environment of a university.
> One very interesting thing I've noticed is that engineers look down their
> noses at scientists and vice versa.
>  I think that is the funniest thing! It's really enjoyable to hear an
> engineer or a scientist make some jab at the other team. Apparently it's not
> just at ASU but at UofA and NAU as well so I've heard from friends attending
> those schools. That is a terrible rivalry or what ever you'd like to call it
> which can only lead to issues in collaboration between both groups.
> Another interesting 'preconceived notion' I've experienced is that as far a
> meteorite go, people at the university, professors and students, see
> meteorite hunters almost like pirates, sucking up material the university is
> entitled to. I let my astrophysics class including my professor hurl all
> sorts of silly notions at me before I clarified what meteorite hunting is
> like. I'm sure their view has been skewed from shows like Meteorite Men and
> from some of the Saharan Hunters.  I explained that the Meteorite Men have
> special permission to hunt some of those fields and that they are hunting
> fields in which there is no shortage of material for universities. I
> explained that hunters like in the South Western United States spend months
> and months before finding new falls and that it is almost impossible to
> profit as a meteorite hunter, baring few exceptions. I also explained that
> hunting fields like Franconia or Gold Basin have so much material that there
> is more than enough for Uni
>  versities to acquire. I also explained that the extreme drop in Austrailian
> finds to almost none is actually inhibiting those Universities from
> acquiring new material for research and discovery of new meteorite types.
> On top of that I explained that a University doesn't need 30 kilos of
> material to study lol.
>
> Meteorite hunters find a field, donate 20g's or 20% or sometimes kilos worth
> a material for classification. It's very important that this is how hunters
> process their finds along with meticulous collection habits like GPSing and
> recording each find so these unknowing educates have no ammunition when they
> come for our hunting rights. It was an eye opening experience for me to see
> that even though they can be highly experienced they aren't all as
> understanding as Laurence Garvie and the other select few educates we all
> work with.  It's scary to think they project these notions on to the
> students who flow semester after semester through their classes.
>
> Raising awareness and educating people is how we can keep our hunting
> freedoms and how we can protect future meteorite discoveries from
> terrestrialization as a result of draconian legislations.
>
> [Erik]
>
> Sent from my iPod
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