Hello everyone! My name is Jared Mummert, and I’m a Junior Environmental Systems Engineering major here at Penn State, University Park. I’m from a small town in York, PA called Dover. Up until about a month ago I was a Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering major, but decided to change to Environmental Systems Engineering when I started realizing some of the effects that the oil industry was having on our environment, in addition to the current uncertainty of the oil market. I think this new major is a great fit for me! If possible I hope to work for a company that treats fracking fluids and helps to mitigate the environmental effects that are associated with oil drilling, or do stream bank realignments. This class is required for my major, but I’m still very interested in taking it because it deals with how people and the environment interact, much like my major of environmental engineering. I chose the online format because the other sections conflicted with some of my classes, but I like the fact that I can complete this course from the comfort of my own apartment!
The topics that I’m most interested in from this course are human-environment interactions and sustainability. We obviously need to utilize natural resources, but we must do so in a way that we don’t beat them into the ground, and use them up before they can replenish themselves. Take the lumber industry for example… We clearly need lumber in our society for furniture, and many other things, but a clear-cut forest will take much longer than a select-cut forest to regenerate. If you only cut mature trees for your lumber purposes, then all of the other trees that are left will be able to now grow faster because they will get more light, and have less to compete with. Obviously sustainability is also a huge issue when it comes to oil drilling and oil consumption . We need oil as a society, but efforts to maximize fuel economy, and minimize greenhouse gas emissions associated with oil consumption will go a long way in maximizing the longevity of this resource.
Hello Jarred, my name is Amir and I couldn’t agree with you more about the issue of fracking in Pennsylvania. I’m a part of a student government and we recently passed legislation promoting fossil fuel divestment, we have a strong feeling Penn State will steer away from that industry in the near future. I think it’s a good idea that you switched to a more promising major. Asides from that, you hear a lot about shady practices in the fossil fuel industry.
http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/01/14/amir-paris-hasan-getting-to-know-you/
Great post, it is very interesting and uplifting to see someone making that kind of change in their life to move from petroleum and natural gas engineering into environmental engineering with optimism.