So, I didn’t quite meet my goal of writing a blog post every week this summer.  I’m a little disappointed in myself, but not terribly so. My priority this summer was to focus on my internship, after all, and to make the most of that experience.

Today’s the last day of that.  I have a lot of mixed feelings about “the last day,” so it’s a bittersweet occasion.  I miss seeing my friends from school, and I’m looking forward to reconnecting with some of my professors to talk about all the things I learned at school that I got to apply to my work this summer (there were many occasions where I did, which I found myself really excited about!). However, I don’t miss the pressures of being in school, and the fact that, unlike my internship, my work is not done when I leave the classroom.

I’m looking forward to this being my last year before I get my undergrad degree.  This is perhaps the biggest thing for me, especially considering my previous experiences. It’s a bit of a long story.

A milestone

Ten years ago to the day, I was driving halfway across the country from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania, with only what I could fit in a car with me.

I get asked a lot, “why,” and honestly it had a lot to do with personal reasons.  Usually I brush the question off with “Wisconsin is boring,” or, “I needed to find myself,” and those things aren’t untrue.  My hometown is the former home of a GM plant, which has of course since closed down—and the town saw the repercussions of that.  Economic growth wasn’t so great, and as far as I saw, there weren’t any opportunities for career growth, either. I spent my late teenage years with the horrible fear that I would never leave that town.  As someone who avidly reads epic fantasies of great journeys and adventures, this was an unthinkable thing. It was, in my mind, literally the worst thing that could happen to me. I never really understood the desire to stay close to home, because I didn’t feel rooted to that home.

I didn’t really have a plan.  Sure, I vaguely thought, “I’ll go back to school when I’m 24, when FAFSA no longer requires me to input my parent’s info.”  (Because despite whatever calculations FAFSA makes, my parents didn’t understand the financial expectations of attending college—after all, no one in my family has gone—and that had an impact on how I funded my education).  But thinking about going to school, and about all the great schools in the Philadelphia area, isn’t the same as actually having a plan.

Ten years ago, I didn’t even know what an engineer was.  A train operator?

I spent my high school years just muddling through, mostly bored but also unwittingly struggling with depression.  It affected my relationship with my parents in a way I’m still trying to recover from, but it also affected the path I followed.  I was told often enough that I’m “smart,” and “gifted,” and that I “can do anything I set my mind to,” and despite a vivid imagination when it comes to the fantasy worlds I saw in books, I had no imagination when it came to life beyond school.

Sure, I liked watching Bill Nye the Science Guy, but there was never anything similar like, Katie the Science Lady or something to show me that a woman could be awesome at that, too.  (As an aside, I now know several awesome science/engineering ladies named Katie!). Science was hardly even on my radar, and the only real careers I could think of were to be a doctor or a lawyer, and neither of those things sounded appealing.  Plus, with my apathy toward high school, I didn’t have the foundation for either of those, or the interest in attending years upon years of expensive schooling.  So I went with what I knew I was good at—what I thought was the only thing I was good at, at the time, which was French.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed studying French, and I still do.  But when it came down to it, I was just checking off another box on my education because that’s what I was supposed to do.  I didn’t see anything beyond that, because what kind of opportunities were available for me, anyway?  Teaching? Translating? I’m sure I had some grand ideas, but nothing grounding, not enough to motivate me through school.  (Funny enough, I remember being excited about never having to take another math class again). So I dropped out, and started working.  And after a year of that, I picked myself up and moved to Philly.

Going back to school was an abstract thought that followed me through my first couple years of work.  I’m not sure I actually believed that I would go back. I kept working and became a manager and I was somewhat comfortably supporting myself—compared to when I had first moved, so really it wasn’t saying much.  But it was an unrewarding job, and it ultimately felt as stagnant as living back in my hometown, and there was no higher position for me to take after management within that company.

And so, I wound up reaching my goal of returning to school.  It’s taken me longer than I wanted it to, longer than I care to admit, but it’s definitely been a journey.  From “dipping my toes in” at community college, to immersing myself in academia and being forced to really consider my future for the first time, and then deciding I might try this thing called engineering that supposedly had a reputation for a decent salary and a good work-life balance and probably would keep me feeling challenged and engaged.

After all, I was smart, right?  To be honest, most days I don’t feel like it, and studying engineering is definitely not the easiest path.  I lost count of how many times I second-guessed my decision. The future was still murky. Even after a couple years of taking engineering classes, I still didn’t know what an engineer was, except maybe abstractly.

And then, a year and a half ago, I went to a random networking event and got offered an internship, out of luck, I often think, but I’m sure merit has just as much to do with it.  Suddenly, I could start to see the shape of my future. This summer, I’ve been able to work with a wonderful team, under amazing leadership, and maybe I don’t know where my path will lead me in another ten years, but I can see the start of it right here.

I’m graduating in May.  The year is going to be 2020, there’s so many jokes to be made about 20/20 vision, right there.  “Hindsight is 20/20.” Looking back ten years ago, when I first arrived in Philadelphia, I had no idea what direction my life would take.  I’ve had people tell me I have an amazing story, but it’s not often that I really think of it that way. I didn’t have any focus for a long time, so I just did what I had to do at the time.  But as I take the time to reflect on this milestone, it starts to come into focus a bit more, and…yeah, it really is kind of amazing. There aren’t very many people that follow such a roundabout path, and I know I’ve benefitted from my experiences along the way with wisdom that I hope to carry forward and share with others.

Perhaps more than anything, I’m so happy that I followed through with my plan to go back to school, even if it was just a nebulous, vague idea for such a long time, and even if it has taken me a long time to finish.  But I made it this far, and I’ve found that I do truly enjoy the work I’ve been exposed to this summer, and it’ll take the end of the world to stop me from reaching that finish line, now.  It feels like such a huge accomplishment, in a way that finishing high school and getting an associate’s degree didn’t. It is, really, and maybe my grades still aren’t the best, but I know what’s waiting for me on the other side of that stage when I walk across, and I know I’ll flourish, because it’s not academia I enjoy but actual, meaningful work.

I already have an idea of what to put on my cap:  “I beat the numbers!” I got through all those tough math classes, I beat all of those statistics that said the boxes I checked made it more likely I would fail, and I somehow managed to scrounge up to tuition for this last year.

I beat the numbers!

It’s a weird time in the semester.  We’re past the halfway mark, but we’re not quite into finals yet…still, there’s plenty to keep us busy as the semester winds down.  In particular: the dreaded group project.

A huge part of engineering is working as a part of a team to create an end result, and as a consequence, our curriculum requires group work to prepare us for that environment.  Professors use group projects as a culmination of the semester’s learning, and next thing you know, you have a group project in every class–not including any lab work which is also done in pairs or groups.  By the end of the junior year, we’re also preparing for Senior Design, which is–wait for it–another group project.

I have to be involved in a grand total of four group projects for the remainder of the semester, after it’s all said and done.  I have mixed feelings about group projects (I’ll get into it in a moment), but my biggest concern right now is scheduling.  Group projects means meeting up with groups, which means finding a time where everyone’s schedules line up.  It’s not so bad with a single group, but keep adding to that number and suddenly…I don’t know, I feel a little overwhelmed!  Of course there’s ways to help figure scheduling out (I use When2Meet frequently), and technology has made it much easier to share documents and ‘telecommute,’ so I imagine things will work out as far as that goes.

As for the whole group project thing…it’s something many students dread.  It’s an understandable feeling–I think we’ve all experienced at least one situation where another person in the group wasn’t pulling their weight.  It happens, and it sucks, but we have to make the grade. But also, I think we have to use group projects as what they are intended to be: a learning opportunity.

I used to hate group projects.  I still have a bit of distaste towards them, but for me much of it comes from worrying I won’t even be able to find a group.  At this point in my academic career, I’m familiar with more of my classmates and I’m more comfortable approaching new people should I need to (overcoming social anxiety has been a journey).  Without that worry, I’m able to focus more on the learning aspect of group projects.

Working in groups requires coordination/communication, organization, and delegation among group members.  These are not things we inherently know, we have to learn them, and there’s really no way to learn them except by doing.  What kind of system worked for lab partners in the past? What didn’t? Usually the best way to go about group work is to figure out where each person’s strengths are, and split up the work accordingly.  Of course, that’s easy enough; the hard part comes in ensuring that everyone does said work.

I haven’t quite figured out how to get that last one to work out exactly how I want it to.  Mostly, we have to hold ourselves and each other accountable within a group, and we have to communicate our needs or problems.  I think that often there’s a reason someone isn’t doing as much as they should–maybe they got stuck and need help, or maybe there’s something in their lives that’s making it difficult for them to fulfill their commitment.  

That being said, I challenge my classmates to this:  if you are struggling with your portion of a group project, don’t hesitate to communicate or reach out for help.  Or, if you notice a teammate is not pulling their weight in a project, offer empathy and ask if there is something they need, rather than reacting negatively.

Overall, though?  I think group projects aren’t so terrible–not just for learning skills to be able to work in a team, but also because it gives us an opportunity to work with people who come from different backgrounds and therefore have different perspectives than us.  Sometimes tackling a problem requires us to look at it from all different angles, which is something we can’t do alone. One of my managers liked to say, “Teamwork makes the dream work,” and as silly/cliche as it is, I don’t think they’re wrong!

Thank you for reading, and good luck to everyone else out there working on group projects!