u/kroyfish

I have a background in industrial and systems engineering. After college I wiggled my way into a job with a power utility company doing distribution grid design work. A big part of this job was traveling around and doing storm recovery work, which was frequent in tornado alley. I have since left the power company to work in MEP engineering in higher ed and I am in the process of getting my PE license. I have a lot of valuable government funded project management experience now, but I really miss doing disaster response. I loved the organized chaos; I loved being out in the field; I loved how each day was different from the next; And most importantly I loved seeing the tangible results of helping people.

My question is, are there any grad school programs you can recommend that are more heavily focused on infrastructure and it's renewal/recovery?

I am so sick and tired of the housing market in this godforsaken town. I make decent money, but I am also careful to not live outside my means. I have been looking for a half decent starter home for a year now. I am very willing to put work in and make it a decent place to live. Despite that, all the affordable houses in this town are either smaller than my apartment or borderline falling over. I'm sick and tired of wasting my time and my realtors time looking at tiny, piece of shit properties. 3 times now I've finally found a half decent fixer upper but my solid offers have been beaten by a couple thousand dollars by some flippers. When I check the market again a few months later the houses are for sale for $100K more than the original price. (Way out of my range now.) Not that I'd want to buy their cheap, boring, beige flips anyway.

I just want a yard and a foundation that isn't caving in on itself man. I am so frustrated by all the new, overpriced apartment complexes and subdivisions I constantly see being built around town when there are so few options for structurally sound homes for people wanting to start lives and families here. It does not make me want to stick around.

Anyways, landlords are the leaches of society, blah blah blah, fuck real estate.