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josh quotes

Josh’s Quotes #22

[500-526] When I experienced difficulties with the lead engineer, at first, I would kind of just go back to my desk, look at it again, and then I’d have to go to a different co-worker. Because if I can’t figure it out and I got to get it done, and I have to do something. I would tell him, I’d be like, “Yeah, I asked him this and this is what he said.” They would give me … If they could, they’d say, “Well, let’s try this and see if that works.” Or they would go and ask him themselves after they tried it and they couldn’t fix it. That happened.

But we had another project, I was working with the same guy and it was the same powerhouse. It’s a part that’s attached to the discharge ring, but a different model, a different drawing. I was looking at the drawing he gave me and I made a model and then I made a drawing, and the dimensions didn’t match up. Yet when I checked it, everything should have been correct. Then I found that there were […] I kept trying to change the models. I changed a lot of things and then I sat down and I did the math again. I realized that there were dimensions on the drawing that either the way they were rounded or the way they were put on the drawing, they conflicted. They weren’t possible dimensions to make what was on the drawing. In that case, when I started having issues, I didn’t want to go to him right away because I knew I was probably going to get a, “Figure it out.”

I went to my co-worker and he looked at it and I told him, I was like, “I’m not going to go to him first. I want to make sure this is wrong before I say something.” He took a look at it himself. I did those calculations. I took a lot of pictures exactly where the problems were. I just went up to him and I started to tell him, I was like, “Look, I’m …” I kind of mentioned it before and I had gotten the like, “Use this dimension.” He told me, “Use this dimension and it’ll work out.” Now that it didn’t, I told him, I was like, “I’m still having trouble with this.” He’s like, “Well, you just got to look at the drawing and make sure the …” I don’t know exactly what he said. But basically, the thing that I didn’t want to hear. I kind of said, I was like, “I tried that, but actually I found this.” Then I told him and showed him what I found. Then he was like, “Let me take a look at it.” In 30 minutes, he was like, “Just do this instead.” Thinking back, it’s just a waste of time. I don’t think I […] I shouldn’t probably have to have those interactions. I shouldn’t have to make a case just to ask a question. But most of my co-workers I could just go to and they would fix it right away or help me right away. But with him I had to really make my case and double check that I wasn’t incorrect when I went to go ask him my questions.

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Josh’s Quotes #23

[25-41] Prior to COVID, I went to a conference, I think it about a month ago now, for a weekend. This was my first time. Then after that, that week was when my school decided to close campus. We have the option to request to stay. I didn’t request it because I had some stuff at home to take care of and they were closing everything on campus. Which means I wouldn’t have anywhere to go for food and there’s no library if I want to go, anything like that. I decided that I was going to […] I guess I should have mentioned, they closed for two weeks. That was the original plan. That they were going to close campus for two weeks. I said, I’ll take two weeks and then I’ll come back. I made the request so that I would be able to come back on March 31st, the current at the time date. I came home and then the next week the governor decided to shut down everything. That meant I couldn’t go back to school. In the past week and a half, two weeks, however long it’s been since then, the school, they first extended the shutdown through the 14th of April. Then they have now extended it indefinitely through the end of the spring semester.

[300-310] Given the nature of the issues, I lean on my family a lot. Like I said, when I got sick, I came home, I laid on my couch all day for a week because that’s all I could do. My family was nice enough to take care of me and give me what I needed to feel better. Then of course, grandmother passed away, so I went home. Now that I can’t be at school working, I’m at home. My family has really been, I guess, the contact point there. Of course, I mean, I do talk to my friends a lot at school or the friends that I still have from home. I keep daily conversations with them. That was also helpful. Another thing is, since I don’t have schoolwork to do in the evenings and on the weekends, it gives me time to focus on when I want to go to the gym. It also gives me time to go on hikes, something that I enjoy doing. That was also helpful to clear my head in those times when maybe my family was busy and I needed to do something for myself.

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Josh’s Quotes #24

[396-421] Although I had an internship this semester, I originally planned to participate in student senate, but I found out that my work schedule would put me coming home right when the meetings were starting every week. I have a position that needs to be there at least 30 to 45 minutes before the meeting. I decided to step down because I could’ve made it work. I could have asked my friends to cover for me and they offered to cover for me before I even asked them. But I felt that the position should be given to somebody who has the time to put in, because they’re going to be more passionate and they’re going to be a better asset to the team.

Even though I didn’t do that though, I still know everyone in the organization pretty much. I’ve gone to a few of their events. I showed up to their meeting one day when I got off of work a little early and I stayed in touch with them. But they are also kind of in cooperation with our campus activities board. I have continued my involvement with them. I still do their … You have to work an event every month. Which isn’t a problem because I usually do the trivia night, which is Friday, around 8:00. It’s way after work, I can still do what I need to do and then enjoy my evening. I did that. I’m trying to think if there was anything else. I mean, I still talk to the alumni department. I’m not part of that organization anymore, but I still support it, I guess as a third party. If that’s the correct way to phrase it.

I mentioned in one interview that I was a part of a thing called road crew. I wasn’t in that this year because I had my internship and I had to be available for that. But their last stop was in downtown near the school where I was living and it was right when everybody came back to school. I went there and I was able to talk to all my friends and support the organization and support my school. We have what’s called the Day of Giving. Where it’s how the college makes its money because our college is not for profit. I participated in that by donating some money, which is typically something that they ask people who are in the organization or have been in the organization. I donated and did a few other things. I showed up to an event across campus one day just to support them and say, “I’m here.” I have even begun talking to them about coming back to the organization next year when I have more time. I don’t think there’s anything else though. I think those are the only things that I’ve been able to maintain with the time that I had leftover in my day.

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Josh’s Quotes #25

[427-444] I’m only registered for two credits for my internship. But I think they still consider me a full time student because I still have my apartment and I’m still a housing contract and I can do all the things that […] I can be in these organizations even though I’m not a full-time student. But obviously very little interaction with faculty especially comparatively, but just in general. But I did get to see them a few times, just happenstance. I had to have my packages sent to the engineering building because of the mail room hours. There were a few times where I stopped in to grab a package at the end of the workday and they were just heading out for the end of their day. I said hi and that was it.

But specifically, to the internship, part of our internships is having a faculty advisor assigned to us. They have to come to the site and they have some questions that they ask me. They have some questions that they ask my supervisor. “How is your college doing? How is the intern doing? Would you have them back? Would you come back?” All that stuff. Then I have to make a poster at the end of the year or the end of the semester, basically talking about my work. Then the supervisor has to take a survey about me. When my faculty advisor reached out to me, I had communication with him and my work advisor, we figured out a day. He came and I have a personal relationship with this professor as well. There were a few emails otherwise. When COVID came out, I was asking him about the state of things, what to expect, how to move forward and stuff like that. Other than that, there has not been interaction with my professors other than the sparse email here and there about senior projects and other stuff coming up.

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Josh’s Quotes #26

[448-462] I don’t really talk that much to other students just because a lot of them aren’t on campus. But my roommate’s an engineer. We talk about work, but we don’t really necessarily talk about what we do. We talk more about the social interactions that we’re having. In my opinion, it seems like he’s not doing the level of work that I would expect from an internship given the experiences I’ve had. It kind of just seems like busy work to me sometimes, not all the time. We talk about that. We talk about what we’re doing and we’re like, “This is stupid.” Or, “This is fun.” Then I do have a few other friends. Like the student that I’m going to be living with this coming year, I’ve talked to him every now and then. He messaged me the other week and he was freaking out. He’s like, “Oh my God.” He’s like, “I designed this part and I ordered this tubing, but I thought it was this tubing.” He’s like, “I got really lucky because it was still correct.” It was a long conversation I’m trying to just shove into a few seconds. But he tells me about his projects. He tells me what he’s working on. He asked me what I’m doing, and we also talk about the coming summer and the coming fall. We had to figure out our roommate situation and all that. But that pretty much I’d say it would describe most of the interaction with my peers. Other than the day to day, I see them walking to the gym or at the dining hall.

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amanda quotes

Amanda’s Quotes #26

[380-387] In my first semester it just started off with a ton of homeworks and assignments and test it was a big, big workload so I was kind of forced into it. With my personality I’m always trying to do my best even though it would be enough to just get a passing grade on an assignment. I would not complete an assignment with something I didn’t think I was going to get 100% on. That’s how it started off. That was very annoying. I didn’t like it at all because I came here for soccer and the engineering took over when I didn’t want it to. My last year, my senior year, has been more focused on the engineering but that’s because I wanted it.

[350-353] I would either pursue a master’s in mechanical engineering since I’m doing my bachelor’s in it, or I was thinking about sports engineering but the industry for that is much smaller and maybe not be a good idea to do a master’s in it if it’s difficult to get jobs. One other alternative is industrial engineering and management which is basically a combination about engineering and economics.

[358-363] Before I got here [United States], I applied for different programs back home in my home country and then I applied for industrial engineering and management just because it’s always something I’ve been interested in like in engineering economics as we talked about before. Then, I got here [United States] and after like a couple of semesters I realized I sports engineering was a thing and that is something I’m even more interested in because I love sports. I do enjoy using my brains to solve problems. To put those two together would be something I would enjoy doing.

[375-376] I came here [United States] for my soccer experience and then the engineering has just become a lot bigger than I expected. I spend much more time on it than I expected. I have liked it.

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Josh’s Quotes #27

[536-547] Overall, I think the internship was crucial and it’s definitely a big stepping stone in my professional development, but I’m definitely not ready to step out into the engineering world yet. It’s helped me to narrow down what I desire from an employer and from a workplace culture. It’s also shown me what things I don’t want to deal with. If I do deal with them, how I want to deal with them. But it’s also shown me that there are a lot of things I have to learn. In any field that I go into, there’s going to be nuances and little things that’ll take years to learn. I mean, there are people at this place that are still learning new components and they’ve been there for 30, 40 years. It’s taught me to really value my education and to not be afraid to ask questions. Because learning more really only helps me. Because even if it’s not something that applies directly, maybe it’s a skill I learned that I can use elsewhere. I think it’s just been a significant stepping stone. Not the final stepping stone, but just a significant stepping stone towards that degree in my hand and a future on the road. Which my current plan, which is new as of a few months ago, I’m intending to look at PhD programs out of college.

[583-607] Something that I’ve always felt in school is, I enjoy helping others or teaching others. I’m not sure what the best word to choose would be. I don’t always understand things quickly, but I can generally get a base idea of things in class. Once I understand something, I usually find it pretty easy to explain because I feel like if I can understand it, I should be able to explain it. Because of that, it’s brought the thought in my head. I’ve never really thought of being in education. I just said, I was like, “I don’t really like teaching people all the time.” I enjoy helping them occasionally, but I don’t think I have the patience to do it all the time. But that doesn’t change the fact that I enjoy what I’m doing at school. I thought, “Well, maybe it’s just education that I like. Maybe I just like learning.” Yeah, helping people is great in general sense. I’m sure anyone gets joy from that. But it made it difficult because I really didn’t want to go into teaching. I was like, “I don’t want to be a teacher. I just don’t see that being a future I enjoy.” Other than the social aspects, I just think it’d be too stressful. Then I started questioning, “Well, what do I really want to do after school?” I’ve always felt that if I stop going to school, I’m not going back. Because I feel like it’s a rolling stone, I’m going and if I stop, it’s going to stop. I guess if I take a break, I’m not going to want to go back. I’m going to get lazy and I’m just going to want to stay inside all day. I’d rather just bite the bullet and get education done so I can coast the rest of my life. I had always consider doing a masters. That had always been my next step.

Honestly, the change really happened when I talked to my friend. I had mentioned I went to the last road crew pit stop in January. That’s where I had the conversation with this peer of mine. It really was, right there, he said it. He said that’s what he was doing, why he was doing it. It kind of just set off a light bulb in my brain. Kind of it just felt right. I was like, “That sounds exactly like what I need.” I didn’t know it before, but it feels right. I thought about it more and more, and I came to the conclusion that I think that’s what I want to do. I don’t necessarily want to go into education, but if I get the doctorate, I think it allows me the opportunity on top of opening a lot of other doors that might be interesting.

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joy participants

Meet Joy

Joy is a white woman attending a midwestern university. Her major combines computer, electrical, and mechanical engineering, and her ideal career will include elements of biomedical engineering. Although she was homeschooled from kindergarten to high school, she was very involved in her local robotics team and made it to the world competition, experiences she links to her later success as an engineering student. She also became interested in prosthetic design from a friend, and through multiple internships has gotten hands-on experiences in a variety of design challenges:

One of the other students there has a family friend who mentioned that their parents had gotten in a car accident and were going through the process of getting prosthetics because they had to be amputated. And I was like, “Wow, that’s crazy.” But also, like, “Can you tell me a little bit more about the prosthetics that they’re getting?” …During my job shadow, he was able to fix something on his patients’ leg and put it back on their leg and they were able to walk out…. They said that they’re looking for interns, so I’m hoping that I will be able to work there this summer.

From Joy’s first interview

The image below is a journey map that Joy created summarizing some of the highs and lows from her second year as an engineering student.

Joy’s second-semester, second-year journey map.

Want to learn more about Joy’s journey? Check out her tag here (or by clicking the ‘Joy’ tag below) to see quotes from her interviews over the years.

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Joy’s Childhood and Family

[3-4; 5-8; 18-24; 49-50; 58-59; 67-68] So my mom is a teacher and I was originally going to be public schooled, but at the age of four I asked my mom to teach me how to read. So, she ended up teaching me how to read and then one thing led to another and then I was homeschooled from kindergarten through high school. When I first became interested in engineering when I was younger, I would help my dad with projects around the house and enjoyed hands on learning. I was in sports from age 10 through 14 and then at 14 I joined robotics and was in that all the time. And then in high school I joined a robotics team, a FIRST Robotics Team. I learned about FIRST Robotics through one of my homeschool friend’s mom. She was heavily involved in it as a volunteer. I joined because my best friend was also on the team.

[74-80] I started out of on the woodworking team because I knew that I wanted to do hands on things but working with wood is more forgivable and safer than working with metal. And it is not as expensive either. They had me working with things like drills, hand tools, calipers, and tape measurers. After my first year, I switched over to the mechanical sub-team where I was working on CNC machinery and metal, steel, acrylics, and Polycarp net.

[97-121] When it was time to apply for colleges, I visited a ‘midwestern university’. Originally, I said, “No, this is too expensive, and their engineering program is not what I want. I want something more like another ‘midwestern university’.” Then, I visited a few other smaller schools, but I chose my current ‘midwestern university’ based on a price comparison between the two schools. I believe that the other ‘midwestern university’ would have made the best mechanical engineer or environmental engineer, but I wanted to a general engineering degree and to be close to my family. Also, the professor to student ratio is 1:20. The professors are willing to help outside of class and get to know you on a personal level. I also found that their graduates actually get jobs.

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Joy on Choosing Engineering

[25-31; 32-39] The build season for robotics is six weeks from the first week of January to the second week in February. You have six weeks to construct an industry-grade robot that will complete a challenge. For example, one year we build our robot to play soccer and another year we built the robot to shoot frisbees and climb a pyramid made from piping in the center of the field. These robots are five feet tall and one hundred and twenty pounds. The design process involved reading through the manual that NASA and FIRST distributed to each team. We had to engineer everything. We made CAD models of it, built a prototype, and programmed it.

[37-39; 43-47] During my junior year of high school, I was able to take off two months of schooling because I was homeschooled and moved it to June through August. When I was in build season, I put in a hundred hours a week, for six weeks, in robotics. And we ended up making it to the world competition that year. It paid off and I learned so much from my mentors (engineers and computer scientists) and just like my other peers and like working in the engineering process from like start to finish. It’s amazing. Going through it five times, definitely helped me now in college. But, yeah. So, I accredit my ability to engage in robotics that much to being home schooled.

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