August Senior Project Progress

August: Senior project has started and I've hit the ground running.

           So far I have accomplished this months goal of attaining a mentor. My mentor is Tom Chaves who is a Grading contractor and starting friday I will be working with him every friday for about three hours ( I will start by going over soil reports). I have also started gathering articles on grading but I have discovered that they can quite hard to find. There are very few articles on grading itself and this has prompted me to possibly change the title of my senior project. I would change it to grading AND EXCAVATING contractor because the two elements of construction are so closely linked as well as interdependent. That was the main focus of August, getting everything together and lined up so my senior project will run smoothly throughout the rest of the year. Things are of to a good start (except a stupid mistake with a late blog post) and I hope things continue that way.

-Joseph Mirabal

Title: Blog 4: Interview Preparation

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  Why?

For my first interview I plan to interview my mentor Tom Chavez. So far he is the only person i know in the grading business (i really haven't talked to many of his co-workers) making him a practical choice. 

2.  You have to ask 5 questions.  What additional questions do you plan to ask?

Question 1: What is the most effective way to successfully acquire a contract?
Question 2: How do you keep an operation running smoothly when it comes to dealing with outside factors; such as permits, reviews and other procedures? 
Question 3: What do you believe is the most essential aspect of any grading operation?
Question 4: How do you successfully cooperate with other contractors working on said construction project.
Question 5: what is the most challenging aspect of any grading operation.

If time allows I might also question him on how he got his job and the credentials needed to become a grading contractor.

Blog 3: Topic Choice and Working EQ

Topic:
Grading (civil engineering) 

Question:
What is the best way to keep a grading operation running without delay?

Bibliography>>>

Blog 2

1. link to spreadsheet
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V9wkh48fiFU9s4AE5yGj7kE0JmNoFDxAwUHtoZ1F5f0/edit?usp=sharing

2. Contact information of mentorships.
Servpro Cleanup services: 1-877-840-7413 (Tom Shmidtt)
Sals pool service: 626-290-3001
Chavez Construction: (Tom Chaves i actually don't have his number yet but i see him at church… so i will get that soon)

3.Questions Raised

• Do damage contractors get good health care?
• Should i be worried about exposure to mold and asbestos? (or excessive sun exposure? i mean these mentorships were killing me… literally)
• Will me being on a construction site be a problem.
• will there be enough work as a grader to get my 60 hours.

Interpretive

4. What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

These mentorships really showed my things that i did not want to do for my senior project. I mean i  guess hard manual labor is not my thing. I did how ever enjoy the time spent with the grading company especially the civil engineering aspect of it. And it will be a very suitable senior project.

Applied

5. What is your senior project topic going to be? How did what you did help you choose a topic? Explain.

Well… the truth is i don't know…. yet. As a fall back i can always get my mentorship as a grader for a construction company and will be perfectly fine with that. But I'm still waiting for a response from an auto shop where i could be mentored as a car repair man and I've just recently got the opportunity to be mentored under a salesman. I've had these opportunities open up so recently and i will come to my decision well before friday but until then i must think about what career field really interests me the most.


But realistically my topic will probably be in the field of grading(construction)