Andrea Gonzalez

I currently work as a hardware and FPGA designer in the Navigation department of Collins Aerospace.

I always considered engineering as both of my parents were software engineers and I saw them as my role models. Also, the subjects that I enjoyed the most during high school were physics and math. I thought I would be a software engineer as my parents, but then in my senior year of high school I started learning about circuit design in my physics class and I just loved it. That is why I chose electrical engineering.

I went to Florida Institute of Technology (Florida Tech) for my Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering and I am currently pursuing my Master's degree in Electrical Engineering in Florida Tech as well.

My day at work can be really different depending on the project and the stage of the project I am in. While on designing stage, my day consists mostly on doing research, talking with more experience engineers to ask questions, running simulations, and putting together a full plan for the whole project. During the development stage, my day at work consists in building the circuits designed, testing them, debugging problems and improving the designs if needed. During testing stage, my day at work takes place mostly at the lab where I am making sure everything works as expected. Finally, when the delivery stage of the project comes, the team sends the product to a customer to start using it and after that maintenance has to be done to the product. My work day in that last stage is really unpredictable as different kinds of situations can take place, such as: problems in the field that have to be solved can happened, customers could ask for improvements to the design or for changes in requirements, components of the product could become obsolete so replacements have to be found, etc.

What I like the most about being an engineer is that every day at my job is unpredictable. I never know what challenges I am going to find, or what problems I am going to be able to solve. Being an engineer is not boring at all, as much people could think. Actually, engineering is so much fun because every day is different.

Among my biggest accomplishments throughout my career, I am more proud of graduating with honors from Florida Tech, become a senior engineer after 3 years of working full time, and being nominated for the New Woman Engineer award by SWE.

The best advice I could give to someone that wants to pursue an engineering career is never give up and work hard for it. Engineering is not easy, you may found a lot of challenges in the way, but the best sensation in the world is see the results of hard work and I believe engineering can give you that. Every time I start a new project I find myself full of fears thinking "OMG, will I be able to do this?". Then I look back and see all the amazing things I have done and tell myself "You always find the way". That is priceless.

I have a lot of hobbies but the most remarkable would be go to a bike ride with my husband, practice hand lettering, go to beach, and watch movies.