That's So Library!

Dr. Mehrzad Tabatabaian

Dr. Mehrzad Tabatabaian is a Faculty Member and Program Head for the Mechanical Engineering Department, Bachelor of Engineering program at BCIT. We asked him to tell us about the books he’s written and this is what he had to say:

When I came up with the idea of writing a book on engineering topics and discussed it with some colleagues with similar past experiences, at BCIT and other Universities, their overall feedback was unanimous –  it will be a lot of work! After having published three books, I can say writing a book is a lot of work and I would give this same advice to faculty and authors interested in publishing. However, I would add that it is also a rewarding exercise, both for academic satisfaction and professional development, even more so when you see that your students actually use your book(s) and learn from them.

For me, it all started in late 2012, and from there it has been a continuous journey. Choosing the Multiphysics simulation of engineering problems as my topic was a natural fit and easy, since I had experience both in the industry and in teaching the topic. I also saw a gap in available learning resources in terms of books that actually guided students and contained practical step-by-step hints for them to build a model. Modeling is a very comprehensive process, a task that requires students to take several background courses to grasp the relevant physics, mathematics, and numerical methods, not to mention to have the real skills to operate and use a simulation tool.

Photo by Cathy Hyska

After 2012, the journey continued and after a year or so my first book was published, COMSOL for Engineers (MLI, 2014), followed, relatively quickly, by the second version COMSOL 5 for Engineers (MLI, 2015, available through BCIT library). COMSOL Multiphysics is a valuable tool for engineers and scientists alike, helping them to address complex real-world problems in a virtual setting. The Multiphysics models that are featured and presented in these books address a range of simple to complex problems with corresponding engineering principles, design criteria, and mathematical fundamentals presented for each model. The third book, CFD Module: Turbulent Flow Modeling (MLI, 2015, available through BCIT library) is more focused on technical aspects of modeling complex turbulent flows and explains different models and their merits for readers to choose from.

My greatest satisfaction from writing these books is to witness students using them to learn the COMSOL software nuts-and-bolts and apply them for their Capstone projects and courses. I have received encouraging feedback from my students about the applicability and usefulness of my books.

Curt Shelton

BCIT Counsellor Curt Shelton co-wrote, with Bruce Alexander, SFU Professor,  A History of Psychology in Western Civilization, published by Cambridge
University Press in 2014. We asked Curt to tell us about it, and this is what he had to say:

A History of Psychology in Western Civilization is based on 30 years of my co-author, Bruce Alexander’s, lectures for his History of Psychology course, a perennial favourite with third- and fourth-year students, at SFU. It’s not a “names-and-dates” history textbook. Instead, it introduces the big ideas of such classic scholars as Plato, Marcus Aurelius, St Augustine, John Locke, and Charles Darwin about what we are as human beings, who we are as individuals, and how to reach optimal happiness. Students often find the ideas in the book challenging but will also say that they were some of the most interesting and memorable ones for them in their post-secondary years. Many students especially like the chapter on Marcus Aurelius, learning, for example, that mindfulness – so popular for a host of things right now – was an integral part of a commonly held way of life in Western civilization some 2,000 years ago. In fact, in a side-by-side reading of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations and the contemporary mindfulness sage John Kabat-Zinn’s Wherever You Go, There You Are it’s easy to get confused about which of those books you’re actually reading at the moment. Even though the West has now re-imported mindfulness from the East, it turns out that it is not a solely Buddhist or Eastern invention. (The reason why it was lost for so long from the Western world is found in the chapter on St Augustine.)

And yes, it is valuable for students – in fact it’s important for all of us – to become familiar with more than just the “official” twenty-first-century Western ways of viewing and living the “big ideas”. Time and again history has shown us that having only a single approach to living life, a single political-economic system, a single way of forming valid knowledge does not stand the continuing battery of trials our ever-changing world throws at it. As Darwin saw, it is because of – not despite – its variations that a species survives and becomes more fit for its environment. Uniformity in any aspect is doomed in the long run. Knowledge of the diverse cache of intellectual wealth from Western, Eastern, and all other traditions can only enrich us and our world.

You can check out A History of Psychology in Western Civilization from BCIT Library.