• Where do I go from here?

    February 18, 2015 |

    Every time I come back from career fair, I have doubts about my career path in environmental engineering. It seems that every company I talk to is in construction or development, and they’re intent on hiring the most boring people possible. When I mentioned that I was planning on adding a minor in journalism, the reactions ranged from to mild surprise to momentary shock and confusion.

    I don’t even know if I want to end up in a “good” job working 40+ hours a week in an office managing projects. Most days I feel like I would be much happier as an outdoor guide or instructor, or an artist, or producing outdoor video and photo projects.

    I find myself inspired by environmental heroes like Edward Abbey and Aldo Leopold, films produced by Patagonia, Camp4Collective, and many more. More than just abut anything, I would love to throw myself into that world and do my damnedest to keep adventure and environmentalism alive.

    Perhaps fortunately, that assuredness is undermined by a healthy doubt. I don’t know if my skills in anything in particular are good enough to get me where I want to be. It will definitely be easier to forge my own path once I already have some “career capital” built up—I could be in demand, not just trying to find a way to make a living. Wouldn’t that be nice.

    It helps me to write things out like this. Problems that seem overwhelming get shrunk down to a manageable size in writing.

    First things first, I need to knock out this semester and find a summer job.

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  • Recent Design Work (And Other Things)

    February 13, 2015 |

    Clearly I have not been keeping my goal of weekly blog posts, but that’s ok. I’m keeping busy. I’ve done a little bit of design work in the past couple of weeks that turned out very nicely. I just want to take a minute and show them off to the world, especially since most of my creative work never sees the light of day.

    Free Fat Bike Demo poster

    This is for an event my college cycling club is putting on.

    My resume

    I redid my resume in preparation for spring career fair and the rest of my summer job search. I haven’t gotten much feedback yet, but I like it a lot more than the old one!

    If you want to hire me, hit me up. eric@eoisaacs.com.

    A beer label

    My housemate has a carboy of homebrew beer sitting in our basement ready to be bottled. I decided to make a label for him, because I’ve always wanted to make a beer label. Apparently it was supposed to be a stout but isn’t dark enough. I went with black and white because hey, black and white printing is free on the school printers.

    I also just started a show on WMTU 91.9 FM Houghton, the college radio station. It’s Wednesdays from 8-10am Eastern and is tons of fun! You can also listen on wmtu.mtu.edu.

    I’m participating in my first XC ski race tomorrow and it’s accross a bay of Lake Superior. The temperature is supposed to be around 0F and I haven’t skiied in a year or two. We’ll see how that goes.

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  • Make This Year a Great One

    January 3, 2015 |

    In some ways I don’t get New Year’s. Why pick only one day out of the year to reflect on the past one and enthusiastically welcome in the next? These seem like valuable thoughts that would be useful most every day. Maybe I think about these things more than your average Earth-dweller. In any case, congratulations on surviving another trip around the sun. It will be 365.24 days before we reach this same position again (but who’s counting?). That’s enough time to write a book, get pretty good at just about anything, walk or ride your bike a long ways, or just eat way too many chocolates. Whatever you decide to do, as long as you do it with conviction, enthusiasm, and for the right reasons, is worth carrying your head high. Try not to let yourself get hung up on the bad stuff.

    Wheelie on the beach

    Last year had its ups and downs, but it was a pretty solid year for me overall. I like where I am, but I also know I’ve got a long ways to go. Here’s to the next lap, and I hope it can be our best yet.

    Here are a few things I will be working towards:

    • Applying myself fully in school
      • Study during times between classes
      • Find peers to study with
      • Places besides the library
      • Office hours
    • Keeping a productive and healthy routine
      • Sleep optimal amount per night (between 7.5-9.5 hours?)
      • Consistent times for waking, eating, studying, cleaning, etc.
    • Creativity
      • Write a blog post weekly
      • Take photos weekly
    • Decluttering
      • Papers from previous years
      • Boxes at home
    • Connecting with new people
      • Study groups
      • Clubs
    • Training for the next cycling season
      • Make training plan in Jan.
      • Ride for fun every week
    • Limiting frivolous internet usage
    • Replying promptly and keeping in touch with people who matter to me

    If you want to be even more stoked for the future, then read these brief essays by adventure writer and all-around stand-up dude Brendan Leonard :

    Thanks to my dad for the awesome picture

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