Geek of the Week: Jordan Francis, Freshman, Mechanical

Choosing the geek for Geek of the Week may seem easy, but it has proven to be somewhat difficult. Nearly everyone plays video games and has unique hobbies, but I wanted to interview someone who was very passionate about their “geek” status. Enter Jordan Francis. Francis, a freshman here at Mines, is majoring is Mechanical Engineering. She is known for her special interest in the obscure.

Why do you consider yourself a geek?
There are a lot of reasons I can list, anything from the fact that I visit the Star Wars wiki on a daily basis and I have an element that my science teacher made for me hanging my dorm room, Jofrancium, to the fact that I can have an hour long argument about Pokémon.

What is your favorite Pokémon?
Probably going to go with Ghastly because it is resistant to most attacks and has good attacks, as well.

What is your favorite pastime?
Hanging out with other nerds and geeks and talking about nerdy things. We can talk about web comics for hours.

What is the coolest thing you have ever built?
I built a fence for my dad. I had to tear it down and build a new one around the whole yard in the Texas heat. I had to figure out how everything fit together and make it insanely stable. It was a lot of fun. It gave me a really good idea about why construction workers do their work at four in the morning.

What is your favorite class here at Mines?
Chemistry. You can’t beat a class where a teacher tells you “I’m going to show you at least 3 explosions this year.”

What is the geekiest thing you have ever done?
Right now, I am making all the readers lose the game.

Why did you choose Mechanical Engineering?
I really enjoyed my engineering class in high school and I really liked the Mechanical Engineering aspect of it. I like that I can combine many different sciences to it. I like its versatility.

If you could have any super power what would it be?
Control over electricity. Everything in the world has electrons. If you have enough control over your power, you will have control of the world.
 
If you could conquer any country what would it be?
New Zealand so that I could do some insanely nerdy reenactments of Lord of the Rings.

Star Wars or Star Trek?
Star Wars. It is what I have grown up on. I haven’t had enough chances to be exposed to Star Trek. You can’t fault the idea of swords being made out of plasma, people moving things with their mind and a talking green Muppet.
 
Why did you come to Mines?
Partially because the application process was really easy and also because when I got here and saw how cool the campus looked and how both friendly and nerdy the people here are,  I knew it would be a good fit.