Passion of the outdoors

Hi Grace,

I'm going to tackle your question a couple different ways.  First of all, I love that you're thinking of combining something you're passionate about (outdoors) and something you're good at (math).  I think it's really awesome that you're thinking about that and that you're thinking about environmental engineering (I'm maybe a little biased because that's what I do).

Next, I would love for us to try to get away from the idea that engineering equals math and science.  I think having this idea in our heads makes engineering seem intimidating and defers young people from wanting to be engineers even though in my experience it is definitely not true that engineers have to be good at math and/or science.  I think that being good at math and science is the only way you're going to get through an engineering program in college, but you by no means have to be a math and science whiz to be an engineer in the real world, at least in the civil/environmental field, which I work in.  While there is still a bit of math and science type stuff going on in the civil/environmental field, being an engineer in this field is largely about being able to work with other people - to work with a team - and to be able to come up with practical solutions.  Most of the math my coworkers and I do on a daily basis is simple math, multiplication, division, etc.

I think that if you have a passion for the outdoors, then a career in environmental engineering could be very rewarding for you.  Environmental engineering is amazing because there are so many great things you can do within the field - drinking water treatment so people have clean water to drink, wastewater treatment to protect our water resources and public health, stream restoration, remediation of contaminated soil and water, and many more very important things.  Some environmental engineers get to spend a lot of time outdoors doing sampling and other types of field work.  Others spend more time in the office than in the field.  It all depends on what type of environmental engineering you are interested in really.

I would encourage you to find engineering firms in your area that have environmental engineers and see if maybe you can shadow someone for a day or a couple of days to get exposed to the different types of things they do.  You never know - that one day of shadowing an environmental engineer now could end up being your way in to a future internship or full-time job.  And it's better to find out sooner than later if it's not something you can see yourself doing.

I hope this was helpful!

Stacy