Best Part I love having the inside scoop on on things like what happens to the water you flush down a toilet, how a building comes to be, how a manhole is installed in the street, etc. These are things we think about every day as engineers, but people outside the field don't necessarily have the opportunity to understand how the world around them is built.
Challenges I think it's challenging for everyone to apply to college, pick a major and adjust to life in college once you're there. As a first-generation college student, I found these things particularly challenging because I didn't really have anyone in my family to go to for tips or advice. Since my family didn't really have much money, I worked two part-time jobs through most of college, so that was also hard to navigate. It took me the whole first semester and failing a class to get into a routine where I had time to study and do my homework. Since I started college in the midst of a recession (circa 2008), it was almost impossible to find a paid internship. Working without pay wasn't really an option for me, which meant I spent my summers working at Quiznos instead of getting unpaid internship experience to put on my resume. I think that made it tougher to find a full-time job toward the end of college. I applied to over 120 jobs all over the country before I even got a phone interview! It was tough, but everything worked out. My biggest challenge now is trying to find a company to work for that shares my values and I'd like to stay at long-term.
My Family I'm from rural upstate New York, with farmers on my dad's side. I'm the first in my family to graduate from college, and my family is very proud. I got married three years ago, and we have one cat and one dog.
Dreams and Goals My major short-term goal is to finish my master's degree! My major long-term goal is to start my own business (but I have no idea what that will look like yet).
Inspiration Strangely, Superstorm Sandy. I started working on Superstorm Sandy recovery and resiliency sort of by coincidence because the storm hit the NYC area only 5 months after I graduated from college. Climate change slapped us across the face, and we had to start acting immediately to rebuild our city. I saw how the damage impacted infrastructure, waterways, homeowners, tenants and workers in ways I never even imagined. It's humbling to work on projects that help low-income homeowners lower their flood insurance cost or make their home more resilient, projects that help dock-workers keep their jobs and projects that help rebuild our critical infrastructure (hospitals and wastewater treatment plants) even stronger than before.
Want to be an Engineer? The world puts too much emphasis on "engineers must be good at math and science". You have to be decent at it to get through an engineering program in college. But in practice, engineering is more about being able to think practically and work with a team. So if you don't love math and science but you're interested in engineering, you'll be just fine. I took super advanced math courses in college, and now I spend my days doing literally no math because computer programs do it for me.