Mind the (generation) gap!

One of the best things of being a PhD student at Imperial is you get the opportunity to work with undergraduates.  And this is how I found myself on one Monday morning (at about 7.30am) leaving on a coach to Silwood Park with about 45 students or so, all ready for the famous surveying field trip.  The trip is a good experience for the students but this is not what I wish to focus on today.  I’d rather share my experience from a slightly different angle than from the academic point of view.

It all began from the moment I understood these 18-year olds I was working with were DIFFERENT.

I remember when I was a first year at uni.  It seems such a long time ago but it was only 10 years ago.  So we are talking about a generation gap of 10years… although this can merely be called a “generation” gap!!!

In my times, we all had computers… no laptops though.  I remember saving documents on floppy disks.  A cd was considered a big breakthrough… so ingenious!  Mobile phones were quite in vogue as well…  I only managed to buy my first Nokia 3310 at the end of year 1.  In the meantime, before you manage to lay hands on one, you carried the phone card (for phone machines) in your purse or wallet.  And with regards to music, as a first year student, I was so happy to be able to draught plans while having my Walkman playing… which was by then being replaced by the discman… that was also a clever discovery!  And with regards to photography, well at the end of the first year my dad bought our first digital camera - 2 Megapixels Nikon… wow!  That was extremely cool!!!

So back to the field, after setting up the total station, there, on the grass, out of the bags, all the gadgets you can imagine were coming out… macs, laptops, ipods, ipads… Mr Jobs must be smiling in heaven!  Everything is slim and smart!

Each student had to sketch the site.  In my times, everyone would have taken out paper and pencil and starting sketching.  Simple.  Hehe.  This bunch would laugh at you, dumb a$$!  So, check this out!  Only one student did the sketching.  Out came the iphone and (soundless) click, photo was taken.  It was then sent to all other smartphones.  And voila!  Everyone had the same sketch within a minute.  And to enlarge it, some even took out the ipad.  And how do you communicate on a site if the person with the total station is more than a kilometre from the one with the reflector?  Simple again.  Chat on the smart phone.  Or else, just make that phone call!  30cm forward.  10 cm to the left.  2cm to the right. Back by 10cm.  Perfect!

O how this world is changing so, so rapidly!  You just need to ensure that you MIND THE GAP!!!