July 9–15, 2008, Number 500
Holiday Fun & Peace Corps News
Copper Harbor Fireworks!
I hope many of you had a wonderful 4th of July holiday like I did. Spending time with friends and family made this weekend a great break from the busy work week. One of the favorite parts of my weekend was the amazing fireworks display up in Copper Harbor. It is said that Copper Harbor has some of the best fireworks for the Independence Day celebration in the entire Upper Peninsula. Whether this is true remains unknown, but as far as I’m concerned it is my favorite place to go.
Many of you probably remember Jeremy Stocks, the previous ParentNet article writer. I met up with him and several other friends on Friday to enjoy the Independence Day festivities. We all headed up to Copper Harbor together and hung out on the overlook of Brockway Mt. Drive. For those of you who may want to check out next year’s display, this would be the best place to view them from. Here’s an image of the scenic overlook as well as a map of Brockway Mt. Drive. It was a great show and lots of fun. I highly recommend families to come up for the celebration that Copper Harbor puts on, as there is also a parade (early in the day) and different games and local activities taking place in addition to the fireworks.
Peace Corps Program
Recently, Michigan Tech was given another great honor to add to the list of many outstanding programs offered by the university. The ranking of first in the nation was awarded to the Peace Corps Master’s International program that 33 graduate students currently participate in at Michigan Tech. These students volunteer through the U.S. Peace Corps program while working on completing their Master’s degree. This article will wrap up with information about this program for those who may be interested in continuing their studies in the future.
There are five different disciplines that students may receive their Master’s of Science in: Forestry, Civil Eng., Environmental Eng., Mitigation of Natural Geological Hazards (Geological Eng. Geology, & Geophysics), and Applied Science Education. The students start by working on and completing academic work on-campus and then serve two years with the US Peace Corps and then finish up with one last semester on-campus to complete the degree requirements for graduation. For many students this is a great opportunity as it gives them a chance to work for a great program and complete research on a field of interest. It also allows them to do work outside of the United States as they can travel to foreign countries that are in need of assistance from those with the education in the fields listed above.
I’m sure for many of you, your students haven’t considered what options lie ahead in terms of graduate school, but I hope that you might encourage them to consider this option. It is a much respected program here on campus and as you can see from the ranking, is large in numbers. Through my experiences of meeting several of the graduate students involved with this program, there is this bond of friendship between them, even though many of them aren’t going to the same areas or doing the same thing. It’s great to see the camaraderie between these graduate students and for many of them they say it is the best time of their lives (here’s a link about why Peace Corps students are happy with the program). For more information check out the main webpage for the Master’s International Peace Corps Program offered through Michigan Tech. There is also an online brochure that talks about the program as well.
If there are any questions or comments about this week’s article please email me at my personal email address. As always, suggestions for future articles are welcomed.
Until next week,
- Michigan Technological University
- 1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, MI 49931-1295
- 906-487-1885