Input/Output: Distance learning on the fly

Mechanical Engineering, Sep 2003 by Ehrenman, Gayle

For most engineering students, distance learning entails working on class assignments when they get home from the office. For Marshall Groves, learning covered the distance between Iraq and Atlanta, Ga.

By day, Capt. Groves pilots a Sikorsky MH-53M Pave Low helicopter for the U.S. Air Force. By night-and between missions-he's working toward a master's degree in mechanical engineering through the Georgia Institute of Technology's distance learning program.

Groves, who returned in June from a five-month deployment to the Middle East in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, is wrapping up the coursework from a spring semester class in open engineering systems. His professor, Farokh Mistree of Georgia Tech's School of Mechanical Engineering, gave him extra time to complete the class, in light of his unusual situation.

"My deployment schedule has been hectic," Groves said. "When I first got to Iraq, I was able to keep up pretty well with the class work. But once the air war started, I didn't get to touch my schoolwork for a couple of weeks."

Groves flew roughly 30 missions with the 20th Special Operations Squadron, which were used to insert and extract Special Forces operatives into the field. Between flights, he tried to squeeze in a few minutes a day to put on headphones and hole up in his tent to do his homework.

"Pilots are required to have 12 hours of rest between flights, which didn't leave much time for studying, even during slow periods," Groves said. When his crew was flying heavily, he said he had little time or energy for much beyond eating and sleeping.

But Groves is used to mixing military life with studying. This was the fifth distance learning class he's taken toward his master's, but the first during wartime. Once before, Groves was scheduled to take the same course he's wrapping up now, but had to withdraw when he was deployed to Afghanistan. He decided to do whatever it took to make it through the class this time, rather than lose another semester.

To complete his work, Groves brought a laptop computer with him to Iraq, along with a CD-ROM of the course, provided by Mistree. The lessons from the CD-ROM ran as PowerPoint presentations, while a Windows Media Player window displayed video of a classroom setting. Groves said the video portion helped him feel less isolated, and more like a part of the class. Prior to being deployed, he downloaded and printed the reading and reference material that would be used in the class, since he had no access to a library in Iraq.

Groves e-mailed his homework assignments to Mistree, but even this posed a logistical challenge. "Our Internet connection wasn't very reliable," he said. "You had to sign up ahead of time for Internet access, then wait in line. Some sites were blocked, and you only got 15 minutes before the other guys who were waiting would start yelling at you."

Plus, there was no guarantee that the Internet connection would be available from day to day. "Any time anything sensitive was going on, the Internet would be the first form of communication to be taken offline," Groves said.

Happy to be back at his home base at Hurlburt Field in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. (where the temperature isn't 120[degrees], and no jackals stalk him), Groves is making plans to take another class. He can complete just one class per semester, and has five under his belt, counting the current class. He has seven more classes to complete for his degree, and expects to finish up the coursework in just over three years-barring any more lengthy deployments.

Much as he would like to take at least a course or two on campus, he'll have to finish up the degree long-distance. According to Groves, because the degree isn't directly related to his military responsibilities, the Air Force won't give him time off to attend classes. However, it does pay for roughly half the cost of his degree.

Groves hasn't yet decided what career path he'll follow upon completing his master's degree in mechanical engineering. "The degree has opened up a lot of options for me," he said. One possibility that currently interests him is returning to teach at his alma mater, the Air Force Academy, in Colorado Springs, where he received a bachelor's in mechanical engineering. Or, he says, he may just stay in the Air Force in a different capacity.

What's certain is that he'll finish the degree the same way he started-online, one class at a time. He figures that if a war didn't stop him, nothing will. GAYLE EHRENMAN