Dean: 'Technology is the future'

Returning to Franklin Field together one last time, the Engineering Class of 2006 was ushered into the world after college Monday afternoon.

The commencement ceremony included speeches by Engineering Dean Eduardo Glandt and Trevor Lott of the graduating class.

Glandt told the outgoing seniors that their profession was responsible for some of the most significant contributions to society in human history.

"Technology is the essence of humanity. Technology is the basis for all human endeavours," Glandt said. "Every important economic challenge, every important health challenge, every important security challenge finds its solution in technology."

Noting how important technology is to everyday life, Glandt noted that mankind makes more transistors -- such as those in computer microchips -- in one year than the number of grains of rice that are harvested worldwide.

The future of technology has always advanced quickly, Glandt said, adding that the graduates will be among those contributing to new innovations in the near future.

"I regret throwing away my first desktop computer, my Macintosh, [which] had a serial number in the 800's," Glandt said. "In ten years we may have devices that hold not 2,000 songs like your iPod may have, but maybe every song ever written."

Lott reminisced with his peers, telling stories of experiments gone wrong as a way of demonstrating the vast improvement of the class during their time at Penn.

"It seems like only yesterday that we were frying circuit boards and messing up significant digits," Lott said. "But now with our senior-assigned projects we have created complex systems and devices that four years ago we couldn't even hope to understand."

The ceremony was a fitting way to end his time at Penn, graduate Kris De Brabandere said.

"I liked it, it is what I expected," he said. "I would have liked a longer speech by [Lott] but otherwise it was okay."

A slideshow of photographs preceding the ceremony served to give graduates a personal perspective of the past four years.

"It gives you a more personal feeling than just an anonymous ceremony," De Brabandere said. "A lot of people graduated and that gives some more charm to it."

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