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As a civil and environmental engineering student you don’t get to do many hands-on projects early on in your classes since usually civil engineering projects are large, cost a lot of money, and can put people’s lives at stake. However, there are clubs you can join that allow you to do these hands on projects. My interests lie in environmental engineering, and specifically water, so my freshman year I found a club that does a design challenge for water-related problems. The problem statement was to design a waste water treatment plant for a community in Costa Rica. The first step of the project was to find out any laws or regulations Costa Rica may have. Now there was a problem- Costa Rican laws and regulations are written in Spanish, and nobody in the club knew how to read it. It had been a year since I took Spanish classes, but I could read the laws well enough with the help of google translate. So somehow, as a Freshman who didn’t know anything about waste water treatment and only knew minimal Spanish, I got put in charge of designing the collection system. This is just a fancy way of saying I designed the pipe layouts. I would lay out large maps of the area and take a pencil to draw out where my pipes would be going. I then had to use google maps to check the elevation of certain areas and make sure the pipes ran downhill to the treatment plant. If the pipes were downhill, I then checked how much they would cost.  When I got close to finishing, I was then asked if I would go to Madison, WI to present my design to a panel of judges. This was probably my favorite part of the project because it’s when it dawned on me how real this was. I really enjoyed getting to present all my hard work and receiving feedback on it. It also reminded me of why I decided to become an engineer. There are people out there who still need help. They need engineers to design water treatment plants, and all other kinds of things to help them.

The intersection of engineering and business:

As an engineer, you will work on many projects both as a student and throughout

your career. These are a great chance to gain real world experience and have a break from

lecture notes and problem sets.

Though I’ve been on many engineering based projects, the best project that I’ve

been on isn’t directly affiliated with an engineering class or student/research group. In

fact, it’s rom my consulting organization.

This group is a combination of students from all majors – mostly engineering and

business – who work on semester long projects for local businesses. If you’ve heard of

engineering senior design projects they are similar.

I’ve been part of this organization over a year, however this semester is my first

experience on a technical project – which is both exciting and a bit scary.

It’s exciting because the goal of our project – helping a medical simulation

company optimize the workflow for one of their products – has the potential to make a

huge difference. It might even indirectly help a patient in the future! I also get combine

my engineering knowledge with the business skills I learned from previous projects I’ve

been on.

However, this project is also a bit scary. I’ve never done anything quite like it

before and a lot of people – from my client to my consultants to my organization, many

people are relying on me to ensure the success of this project.

I believe that it is just this mixture of excitement and scary that is making this one

of the best projects I’ve been on. I’m gaining valuable experience, challenging myself,

and most importantly, making a difference. And isn’t that the goal of any engineer?

My favorite non-engineering class is Asian American studies because of how it offers a different perspective on history. It is also interesting to learn different view points. This class was used to serve as a gen-ed credit towards a non-western culture/minority class. The history of Asian Americans reviews over the oppression that happens everyday that we often do not notice.

Favorite engineering course? I’ll be really basic and say PHYS 211. Maybe it’s because it’s relatively easy for me. Or maybe it’s because I have Mats Selen as my professor (mind you, he won awards for being the best teacher in the entire university). Or maybe it’s simply because I love physics. I’ll admit, the course structure can be daunting at times or just outright annoying, but you get this sense that the people who designed and made this course really do love physics. The TA’s take their work seriously and the professors are super excited to teach you this so-called “basic material.” But hey, it’s the basics that are really important. It doesn’t have to be your favorite class, but I definitely think PHYS 211 can be enjoyable, if not rewarding. Psssh, it’s always required for engineering majors so just try to get the most out of it.

As for my favorite non-engineering class, it would have to be CLCV 100. An online course, the proper name of the class is Vocab Building – Greek and Latin Roots. In other words, I now know that pedigree originally meant “the foot of a crane” and squirrel actually means “shadow tail.” But besides just learning random facts about random words, the class has helped me figure out what bigger words mean, like pandemonium and intransigence. Did you know: villain originally meant farmhand and only took on its current definition because the wealthy saw the peasants as, well, villains. Kind of cool, right? I’m a big fan of applicable knowledge, and this class is huge on application, which is why it’s my favorite non-engineering course. Also, it’s super easy! That’s always a bonus. And it’s online. Another bonus.

When I first started exploring college majors, it was more a process of removing things I didn’t want to do, rather than looking at what I did want. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do, only that every fiber of my being wanted to spend my life helping and serving others. I ended up applying for engineering because it seemed to be the only thing left on my list, and I chose mechanical as it was the broadest, offering the most opportunities for exploration within the major. As I entered my freshman year at Illinois, I then spent most of first semester looking for a reason to leave engineering to study music education. However everywhere I looked seemed to offer more reasons to stay, reminding me why I loved helping others in the first place. Between learning about real-world applications in class, access to various creative labs, and the opportunity to join clubs based on helping others through engineering, my decision to stay with engineering wasn’t very difficult. I found that engineering combined my passion for people with my desire to create, allowed me to explore any and every aspect of the world around me, and most importantly, offered me a community filled with others just like me.

Of course, none of this could have happened without the University of Illinois. As the oldest child of two alumni, I grew up attending various Illinois sports camps, football tailgates, and basketball games, quickly finding myself familiar with the university. When it came time to search for colleges, I was looking for a place with a strong community to match strong academic programs. It was no surprise then, when on an official tour of Illinois (rather than those my dad liked to give), that I immediately found that sense of community within the first steps from the Union. Looking around me, at the quad we explored at math team finals my senior year, at the various dorms I stayed in for camps, and at the restaurants on campus I visited with my family, I realized that I had already started to build a community on campus; I truly felt like I belonged here. With that aspect then supported by fantastic band, engineering, and psychology programs (the three areas I currently study), I knew Illinois was the place for me. This community drew me in, this community kept me in engineering, and this community keeps me motivated every single day.

I am not the typical engineer. I didn’t grow up taking all my toys apart. I didn’t take excess honors or AP Science and Math in high School. I didn’t join any STEM oriented clubs before college. But I chose to study engineering because I have a strong desire to understand the world around me and understand how things work. That, combined with my passion for biology made me choose to study bioengineering with the end goal of using my knowledge to better the lives of patients worldwide. I chose bioengineering over biology because I knew that to make the most impact I needed to combine biology knowledge with engineering problem solving skills and fundamentals.

I chose UIUC in particular because of the people. Visiting as an admitted student for SWE’s little sisters weekend, I immediately sensed the passion and excitement everyone had. More importantly though, I loved the small, close knit feel of my department. Everyone I met wanted help you achieve your goals and it was a collaborative as compared to competitive environment. This is something that was unique compared to other high caliber engineering schools. I also saw the amazing opportunities that UIUC students had being part of a well-respected and well known research institution.

This is why I chose engineering. This is why I chose UIUC. And three years later I couldn’t be happier.  

Why did I decide to be an engineer? When I was in high school, you could either take biology, chemistry, or physics as your science class. I took biology and chemistry, and hated them, so I took physics because it was my last chance to like a science course. It turns out, I loved it! It made me so happy to use math to connect to the way everyday things, like slides and wheels, work! I did some research after my mom told me that she thought I should go to school for engineering, and found out that mechanical engineering was the best way I could use my love of physics and math. I wasn’t some kind of math genius, but I was good at it, I worked hard, and I really enjoyed what I was doing, so I knew it was the right path for me.