[meteorite-list] University Experience

From: Erik Fisler <phxerik_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:30:31 -0700
Message-ID: <6F7233F6-A07C-41E2-BAFB-44FD929A12A5_at_yahoo.com>

Thanks Mark, see you in Tucson as well! I'll be at the birthday bash for the first time as I am now 21 ;)

Bob, universities actually do make trades and buy new material. I was lucky enough to be let into the vault and there was kilos and kilos of new stuff that had been traded and bought to add or to replace collection pieces. Garvie is very adamant about improving ASU's collection.

[Erik]

Sent from my iPod

On Jan 16, 2012, at 8:39 PM, 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
> ______________________________________________
> HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!
> Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html
> Meteorite-list mailing list
> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Received on Mon 16 Jan 2012 11:30:31 PM PST