How to Continue Making Connections

I spent this past week scheduling more interviews and hearing about the perspectives of a few different people. I completed three meetings this week, with three different engineers, all of whom worked for the city of Frisco. The three engineers recounted similar day-to-day work experiences, similar overall job descriptions, and similar pros and cons to their job. A common theme I noticed among the three people I interviewed was that a job for the government involves more working with private firms to ensure that their designs and constructions follow government codes, by looking at their designs and checking out their construction sites. They all mentioned a ratio of about 80-90% indoors to about 10-20% outdoor construction and surveying work.

The three engineers I interviewed worked in both the public and private sector. The general consensus was that the private sector involved more work and some required overtime, but it allowed for the engineer to do more design work. Working in the public sector was more government work, but less work overall. Based on these descriptions of the two sectors, I can say that I’m more interested in pursuing a career in the private sector - I’m willing to spend more time working on a project if it allows me to use my creative problem solving skills and do design work.

The interviews I conducted this week were definitely informative, but I think it’s time for me to take another perspective and perhaps start asking more diverse or specific questions. I’ve noticed I’m getting very similar answers for the questions I’ve been asking, so I’m going to take some time to think of more unique questions. I also got a reference for a woman who has worked in engineering, and I think it’s very important for me to get a woman’s perspective on what it’s like to work in a male-dominated field like engineering.

I think I’m coming to the end of my interviews, so it may be time for me to think about who could be my mentor for the rest of the school year. In the coming week, I’d like to finish up most of my interviews, and work on my speaking and presentation skills through my Quick Trip presentation. I’ll also be looking into more specific questions to ask my interviewees. I’m feeling like I’ve been making a good amount of progress lately!