Engineering students featured this week!

Congratulations, Jonathan Becker on winning our CIT Library Blog contest celebrating Engineers Week!
Congratulations to Vicki Cheng and Fei He, runners-up!

Following are their submissions:

Jonathan Becker
Electrical & Computer Engineering

I am an ECE Ph.D. student currently located at the Silicon Valley campus in the west coast. As such, I have yet to physically step foot in any of the Carnegie Mellon libraries. That's not to say that I do not use any of the library services, as part of my Ph.D. research involves finding, reading, and evaluating published conference and peer-reviewed journal papers. For my first Ph.D. project, I am designing an anti-jamming 802.11 antenna beamformer array using genetic algorithms to find optimal antenna phase and attenuation settings. For my second project, I am designing solar antennas that can convert sunlight into usable electric currents. For both projects, I not only need to read books on related subjects, but I need to read as many conference and journal papers as I can possibly find. This way, I can understand what research has already been done in my project areas, so I can implement new technologies to help solve my engineering problems. It also helps me prepare for my quals.

Now, you may ask where the CMU libraries come in all of this? Simple! Since I cannot physically visit any of the libraries in person, I login into the CMU Library’s Virtual Private Network, and I search and download online articles. I've found this to be a great service to my learning out here in the Silicon Valley. Once I'm logged in, I have a cornucopia of conference and peer-reviewed journal articles ready for me to download and read.


Vicki Cheng
Chemical Engineering

"Yesterday Once More"

I was recently reminiscing with my roommate about what it was like to grow up in the 90s, and was struck by how technologically oriented our memories were. What started out as an innocent remark about how Wikipedia was spoiling the students of this generation quickly escalated into a game of “I remember…”, in which each of us tried to outdo the other with recollections of activities from the days of yore, each of which appeared increasingly outlandish by today’s standards.
“I remember when we actually looked things up in BOOK encyclopedias at the library!”
“Yeah? Well, I remember doing research papers by going through PRINT journals and using INDEX CARDS!”
“Oh yeah? Well, I remember having to find books using the CARD CATALOG!”
At that point, both of us collapsed into a pile of hysterical giggles as we realized how far library research had come and gone over our nearly two decades of schooling. As much as we may laugh about how different library protocol was “back in the day”, the need for information has not changed over time. While I’ve found that I, along with several of my peers, are progressively moving towards online and electronic sources for our research needs, the fact remains that the CIT Library, with its wealth of resources, is as important as ever, and it will certainly be interesting to see how this infrastructure will evolve to work with students in this digital age.


Fei He
Information Networking Institute

I didn't notice this activity until I ponder for a programming design problem around E&S library's entrance. The topic reminds me how grateful I should be for the CIT library: if there's a winning prize, it should be awarded first to the CIT library itself.

Coming from a university in China, I came to CMU to study a master degree in computer science. I found myself most comfortably studying in the E&S library, as I would study in classroom in China, the pattern that most Chinese students follow as we normally don't have such a student-friendly library in China (discussion room, printers, network...you name it).

In this 2-year study at CMU, the library is the most frequent place I stayed, even more than classroom as sometimes we have to skip class to finish projects:) I searched and read books on shelf, discussed projects with teammates, and even prepared for job interviews. It serves as a cove rather than a floor, and it is its power of knowledge that leads me to job opportunity and foundations to success in future.

Although this submission might be a little late for the blog, it's the right time for me to say "thank you".