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josh quotes

Josh’s Quotes #12

[377-415; 496-510; 656-673] Our fluids professor can be a bit hard on us. It does get annoying since I’m coming here to learn, not get chastised for asking questions. He definitely knows what he’s talking about and good at explaining. He called on random people in lectures. One time, I was working on a homework. I’m trying to be efficient by making a table, I asked him if it’s acceptable, and his response threw me off guard. He said, “Yes, but you should ask what’s the maximum I can do instead of minimum.” In my mind, I’m just trying to be efficient and make it easier to read.

For micro lab, I asked my professor a lot of questions. She would explain it until I understood. Knowing when you have a problem and seeking out the help before it becomes an issue that you can’t solve. I have a lot of interactions with faculties in school. The new professor has become a very good person to talk to because usually after I asked her a question about a lab report, we discus about how things goes for 40 minutes.

During an event orientation, a professor I had last semester pat my shoulder to say hello, so later I walked to his office. Even though we are both busy, we still talked for 20 minutes about my co-op and how I’m doing in school. The machine design professor sat down with me before this exam because I feel like I’m going to fail. He made me answer the questions to prove that I knew enough to what I was talking about to do decent on the exam. It’s also finding the time to relax in situations where it feels like I have none. I feel like it’s evident that I talked to my professors. I am very open about things going on in my life.

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josh quotes

Josh’s Quotes #13

[545-702] I know a lot of the people in engineering program. I tend to interact with four to six people on a regular day because I’ve gotten to know them over the past three years. We have classes together and see each other in other extracurriculars. I have general interaction with everyone in the program. I’ve always been the student who answers questions. A lot of people in the program have been reluctant to talk to me because I acted like a teacher’s pet. As I’ve been put into classes with more people, they started to realize I’m also having the same struggles as they are. My interaction with my peers has increased a lot this past few weeks. A lot of the interaction is during the day in classes.

To navigating through low points, it was a lot of self-reflecting on other people. When I was in the fall, I was getting extremely overwhelmed by my math class. For about two weeks, I was struggling to stay positive and get my work done. It was my past experiences to convince myself that the struggles are only temporary. Another point was brought to my attention that my classmates and I talk about a lot. I won’t take any classes in the spring. My peers and I agree that we had to go through this fall because we were coming back in the spring. We are so busy that we don’t have time to realize how fast is fast. I know pretty much everyone in the program, but a majority of people have different methodology than me.

Sometimes, students gather in the civil engineering building, and I don’t even know when they get there. Tuesday afternoon they stay there till 4:00 in the morning doing work. While working with my peers, we have same methods. That’s reflected in the people that I do spend most of my time with. We start ahead of time so that we not only don’t have to work at hard-last minute but also we can ask questions. It’s picking and choosing which peers I know are going to help me, and I do sometimes go to sessions with other people. We study and work with each other.

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josh quotes

Josh’s Quotes #14

[628-648; 729-742] There’s only so much self-repair you can do when you get knocked back down. It’s just the general feeling of anxiety in academics. If I don’t get this done, I’m going to work much harder later. The best way I can describe it is notice change and recognizing the change in behavior was how I get through difficulties.

The past four months have definitely been some of the biggest areas of growth that I’ve personally had in my life. I gained a lot of experience from the real world. I’ve had 12 jobs since 14, but none of them were engineering jobs. Having an engineering job allowed me to be used to professional. That taught me even if the concepts don’t apply, there is a baser reasoning to what I’m doing. I can look at a problem now and solve it without any help. If zero is not an engineer and 10 is an engineer, I put myself at six or seven. Purely because I don’t think getting out of school and getting an engineer job makes me an engineer. There’s an additional component that can only be found with experience and time. Getting the degree put me up from six or seven to an eight.

This afternoon, I’m updating my resume and choose where I want to go. As long as it fits their requirements that they lay out before me with time. My professor had to come visit the company I worked out for over the summer to see that I’m doing meaningful work and they’re taking care of me. I am still looking for an internship. Because my school is so involved in community, I can find a position that get me experiences that I need to achieve before I graduate.

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Joy’s Quotes #11

[97-103] When I was in high school, I was on a robotics team. One of my mentors from there works at a company that designs vehicles. He remembered me and offered to let me work there as an intern for summer, cause he thought that I would be a good fit. My job involved some designing, as well as working with the assembly technicians to sort of implement the stuff that I was making. It was definitely small-scale designing for me. The company had about 14 employees. So, it was a small company.

[104-110] They make disaster relief vehicles. They weigh between 15 and 50 thousand pounds, depending on which attachments you put on them. The vehicle that I worked on over the summer that we actually shipped out had a 30-ton forklift on the front. Yeah. Sorry. It didn’t weigh 30 tons. It could lift that much weight. It was massive. I have never seen a forklift that big. I didn’t even know that the actual forks themselves were wider than my body. It was very weird and quite tall.

[111-116] Anyway. And it had six German automobile company battery packs. So, those are the size of a twin-sized bed. And so, those go inside. I think those go inside of vehicles that the German automobile company makes, but it’s definitely not the cars, cause a car battery is small. But, anyway, so, that was that. And then, a dump bed and a scissor lift on it. And so, that was sent to the west coast and it helps with their port.

[117-122] But there’s also ones that we’re looking into sending to an orchard that will harvest apples and other things and spread chemicals over whatever the trees they need fertilizers. So, it’s a very diverse purpose for each one of the vehicles. They’re kind of expensive, like a million dollars each. You can buy this vehicle, and then, add attachments.

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Joy’s Quotes #12

[159-164] The first thing that was kind of unique about this experience was that I was the only female in their company. So, at first, they didn’t really know what to do with me, so to speak. For example, I would walk into the room, and they would be talking, and the assembly technicians would be talking, and they would cuss or something, and then, they’re just like, “No, no, no. You can’t do that. Joy’s here.”

[166-170] But, as the summer went on, it was a lot of fun to get to know them. And, because they were between 35 and, I would say, 55, it was a lot of fun to work with them and hear about, I don’t know, their life experience in the different companies that they’d worked at over the years, and just kind of getting the insight into what’s it like to work in a company.

[171-178] Then, another part of that was they were kind of intimidated by the fact that I was in college. And I didn’t understand that, because I looked at them as, “Wow, they’re just full of wisdom, and I have so much to learn from them.” At the beginning of the internship, in addition to when I would walk in, they would just kind of stop talking and be on edge. If I was working in the same room around them and not with them, they would first just say things like, “I wish I was good at math,” or “Guys are supposed to be better at math than women.” And I was like, “What? Why are you trying to purposely talk loud so that I would hear them say these things?”

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Joy’s Quotes #13

[179-189] So, it was a little bit weird at first. But, yeah. I don’t know. I would say, after the first of two weeks, I started working with them as opposed to around them. And so, talking with them while mounting things and asking them for help on, I don’t know, operating machinery that I hadn’t seen before. It was a great teaching experience for them and learning experience for me. They liked the way that I was organized. So, any time something went missing in the shop, they never pointed a finger at me, because I had a reputation of, any time I would get a tool out, I would organize the entire drawer when I put it back. Cause, I mean, all the tools would be everywhere. They joked that they could figure out where I had been, almost like they were detectives, because anywhere there was clean paths, it was because I was there.

[190-195] So, the assembly technicians, it was, honestly, it was just really enjoyable, as opposed to them mentoring me in an engineering sort of way, because I don’t think any of them went to college. It was like they had a high school degree and they’d worked in factories their entire life. And so, that was the kind of experience they were teaching me and telling me about, or their family dynamic, and just that kind of stuff.

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joy quotes

Joy’s Quotes #14

[123-128] Anyway. So, I spent the majority of my summer either working with the assembly technicians, attaching decals and running wiring harnesses. Let’s see. What else? Attaching minor hinges and doors, panels on there. As well as, I designed a forklift control panel. So, all the levers that you would need for the joystick.

[129-136] It was really fun. I was sent the dimensions for men and women from the first percentile to 99th percentile. Then, based on those dimensions, I had to design my system based on the radius that someone’s wrist, both men and women, from, I think fifth percentile to 80th percentile. I think that’s what I had to design it for, from wrist rotation to fingertip, because there were four triggers. So, that was the main project I worked on and it was a success. We put it onto one of our units. And, because each vehicle’s personalized, they probably won’t need it again unless somebody wants a forklift. But, yeah, it was so cool.

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Joy’s Quotes #15

[196-201] When I wasn’t in the shop, I was working with the engineers and the other interns. There were three other interns. Also, the owner of the company also worked in the offices. So, that was really cool. And the founder; he’s the owner and founder. So, that was where I learned a lot about what’s this going to be like to be an engineer later on.

[207-216] So, my supervisor would give me a task. For example, he said, “Make the forklift operating station,” and then, sent me the documents, and then, said, “Email this other person,” who was a project manager, but he has an engineering background,” to get the schematics for the dimensions of human arms, including the radii in which the elbow and wrist rotate.” So, my very first mistake was that I did not clarify. I don’t know if this was a mistake on my part or their part. But I did not clarify what radius they wanted me to make this off of, either the elbow or the wrist. And I assumed it was the elbow. I designed the whole thing in CAD, and even made a prototype, and I give it to them, and he goes, “This is not comfortable.”

[217-224] I was like, “Oh, my goodness. I am in so much trouble.” And I was kind of concerned, cause I’ve never been given a responsibility in any of my internships so far, in which me making a mistake actually impacts people. And so, it was really weird to be the only person on this project. And, basically, until I get it done, I don’t have to report to anyone. But, no, that was very interesting. They weren’t upset with me. They didn’t blame me for that. They were just like, “Yeah, this is a learning experience, and this is why you make prototypes. Also, you’re an intern. You are supposed to be learning.”

[225-236] Then, they went through the process of explaining to me why you’d want the elbow radius versus the wrist radius. Oh, actually, sorry. Reverse that. I made it off of the wrist radius first, and it was supposed to be the elbow. Which means, it was a much tighter radius. It was more arched, as opposed to flat. And so, he explained to me, “On an airplane, you need to have very precise adjustment abilities. And, therefore, you should just be moving your fingers and your wrist. Whereas, if you’re going to be sitting and operating a heavy piece of machinery, like a tractor or a forklift or something like that, for hours on end, you do not want to have to hold your wrist at the perfect angle. It’s more comfortable to just kind of rest your elbow on the chair and hold the trigger down for multiple hours in a row than just running it back and forth.” So, it was really interesting to hear the science behind why you’re making a simple decision like that.

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Joy’s Quotes #16

[237-242] The engineers were very kind, and I learned a lot from them. And I’m more confident in my ability to go through the engineering process of, “We have a need. How do we solve that need,” and how to get from Step A to B to C and finally putting it on the machine. Because it was a small company, I was able to actually see the very start all the way to actually shipping it out on the unit that the customer was going to use.

[137-152] Then, at the end of the internship, I worked on modifying one of their vehicles that they had to accommodate a fifth wheel. So, I researched what kind of fifth wheel we would want. And a fifth wheel is something that’s on the back of a trailer, or, sorry, on the back of a semi that the trailer hooks into. So, it has the kingpin from the trailer that goes in, and it latches into the fifth wheel. And that’s what allows a trailer to rotate on the back of a semi. I worked on that, changing one of their pre-made units that they keep in-house, and they don’t sell, to be able to have a fifth wheel that they can then haul their semi-trailer with. Because, they need to use that trailer in order to haul some of the units that they are shipping to the companies. Cause, right now, we ask our trucking company to come and take our vehicles. Cause, you can’t ship these things on a plane. They are way too heavy. So, we hire a company to pick up the unit and drive it to the west coast. But we would like to use our own trailer from now on. Then, when we’re moving stuff around our plant, it’s nice to have our own way to move our unit from one end to the other without having to drive it from down the property

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Joy’s Quotes #17

[80-82] My engineering internship was a lot of fun, and kind of helped me regain my confidence in my engineering abilities and just kind of get myself out of the academic mindset.

[248-269] Because it was so difficult a year ago. Then, I was just so tired from trying that two semesters ago. This last semester, I was just really discouraged in my abilities to work through my classes and the homework. I was just talking with a friend about this, that it’s gotten to the point where the last time I can remember feeling like I’m actually good at something was high school. Because, you try, you don’t understand something in calculus, you just read the textbook one more time, and then you got it. Whereas, heat transfer is something, you fail a quiz, and then you do fine on the homework and that’s because you spent hours and hours and hours on it. Then, you fail a quiz, and then you fail a test, and it just keeps going. In other cases, getting A’s on things, and I’ve come out of the classroom, like, “Yeah, I have an A- in this class or an A, but I really don’t feel like I understand this.” I’m just fighting to go through that course.

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