Summary+Response

S/Reponse Summary: Engineering is a diverse science, each of the disciplines have their own defining characteristics and also a certain amount of commonality. I was able to interview four employees with Shaw Engineering. Anders Fornberg, an electrical engineer, John Elliott, a pipe stress and support engineer, and two structural engineer Tara Yack and Sarah Craig. They have been working for Shaw from as little as 8 months to 4 years. The office that they all work at is a power office which means that their projects are either power plants of related to power plants in someway. Even they all worked on separate projects and attended different universities and had a variety of experiences their answers had similarities. They chose to become engineers because they were fascinated with how complex systems works and wanted to work on large projects that society as a whole could benefit from. Engineers are faced with difficulties and less than ideal situations all the time and so points it can be quite stressful. However, the satisfaction that they feel after reaching the solution difficult problem makes the struggle worth it. Engineers enjoy the unique opportunity always be learning something new, it is a field of constant growth and generation of new ideas of how things can be produced or improved. Even with all the difficulty and stress engineers deal with for the 4 I interviewed wouldn’t change their career even if they had the opportunity. Engineering do to its nature will always be in demand; it is always changing, growing and improving. The only limitation on what engineers design for production is money and demand. The majority of all projects engineers complete are based on the needs of the clients and the funds that the client has available to them. Engineering has remained relatively stable with respect to the economic situation, some filed such as home as office design have slow but most infrastructure projects have been unaffected. To be an engineer a bachelor degree is necessary however as masters isn’t necessarily required depending on the field. “Engineering is an extremely rewarding, challenging, and well respected career path. The dedication and determination that is required in obtaining a degree in an engineering field is not for everyone, but I full-heartedly recommend it for those who think it is for them.” (Anders) Engineering is not for everyone it requires dedication and a willingness to continue even when things seem hopeless. It isn’t a boring career it is very dedicated and requires the ability to remain objective about one’s work and be willing to change and adapt as necessary. Response: Ever since I was little I was always fascinated with not only how things work but why they function the way they do and what purpose they serve. I have known for awhile that I wanted to be an engineer but is was and still is solely a matter of deciding which field of engineering I wan t to pursue. They all have similarities but they each require specialization. I attempted to interview as many different fields as possible but only received mixed results. Based on my interviews I am even more convinced that I want to be an engineer and that the only decision left is really what direction I want to head. I don’t want to limit my opportunities but specifying to early in my college career but I also don’t want to receive such a diverse education that nothing really sets me apart from any of other prospective engineers. The levels of education were interesting to me because they varied based on the field of engineering. I always assumed that at least a master’s degree was necessary to be able to even remotely compete and actually get hired. However based on my interviews I got mixed opinions Tara, a structural engineer, said “I think that a master’s degree is almost essential these days. In my experience most of the offices I have interviewed at are only looking to hire graduates with an MS” (Yack). However, John Elliott, a pipe stress engineer, stated “Just get your undergrad and work for awhile”(Elliott). The engineers that I interviewed all agreed on the fact that engineering isn’t the lowest stress job out their but that it is extremely rewarding. I couldn’t agree more with this because engineers are constantly faced with problems projects rarely ever work out the first time. For example Tara Yack stated that “sometimes there are issues that arise on the site during construction. The contractor will call and say that they have a problem and it’s my job to come up with a solution fast” ( Yack). The ability to problem solve and rework projects until a solution is reached is vital. Anders Fornberg said that “engineering, in general, demands a lot of dedication and requires a great amount of attention to details” (Fornberg). I have always found myself willing to take on any challenge that requires problem solving to find the solution. I discovered this more convincingly in AP BC Calculus last year because when I was faced with a problem that I had no idea how to solve I would use my own knowledge and creativity to derive the necessary equations and finish the problem despite the fact that I didn’t know the process in which I was supposed to use to solve the problem. I enjoy taking on the challenge of designing and manufacturing things that other thought of or charge a lot for. One example of thus is the fact that I own a 35 year old truck that the manufacturer hasn’t existed for 29 years, as a result finding parts isn’t always the easiest task. The result is that I have to learn how to design manufacture and test various parts that are either no longer available or never existed in the first place. Based on my personal fascination with the design process and how things functions, and the answers from my interviewees I’m sure that Engineering is for me. However the result of this project is also somewhat counter productive in the respect that by doing this project my eyes have been opened to whole fields of engineering that I never knew existed. The opportunities are endless and all they requires patience and the ability to problem solve and not be turned down first, second and even third design still fails to function. I believe that all problems can be solved it’s only a matter of how much time is necessary to solve some problems.