defining moment

defining moment / navy / submarines — View Comments
17
Mar 08

My "defining moment" to Become an Engineer

Do you remember the point in your life where you decided that you wanted to be an engineer? Are you one of those guys that knew all along? I am amazed at how many fellow engineers knew all along that they would choose a career path in engineering. At least on the mechanical side, a good majority of folks start tinkering with cars in their teens so mechanical engineering is a likely path to choose. If you knew engineering school would be so difficult, would you choose it all over again?

I never in a million years thought I would be an engineer. I wasn’t the stereotypical engineering kid. I’m not sure what that really means, but I think we all have a similar mental image. I always did fairly well in school, but never had the drive or the quest for knowledge that I have developed as an adult. I was never all that into cars, not really a hobby kind of person. So why choose engineering?

A great term was brought to my attention a few months ago by a co-worker. We were talking about a different topic and he was explaining a scenario where a customer of ours had a “defining moment”. It was that point in time where something “clicks”, you come to a conclusion or some sort of agreement. Great term, actually. So, my defining moment to become an engineer happened in my early twenties.

I came out of high school and wanted to enter the medical field. I attended a year of nursing school and quickly realized that school was not for me at the time. So, I picked up and joined the Navy. A very typical thing for me at the time to simply make a decision and act. I am not so much like that anymore. So, off I went to boot camp and later submarine school. Why submarines? Well, they paid more. No other rationale than that.

As with everything in my life, I am drawn to the people, not the project. Over the course of many months, I asked the engineers 1000s of questions. I learned more about the people than I did the job. All of the engineers that I worked under were either mechanical, electrical or nuclear. They all attended nuclear power school and were certified to monitor and operate the nuclear reactor on the sub. So, believe it or not, I had the idea that I would be a nuclear reactor operator when I got out of school. Way too many rules and regulations in that field for me. But, it kick started me off into a new world. As time went on, there was another defining moment that pushed me into the world of CFD, but that’s for another time.

I am interested to hear other’s stories about their journey into the world of engineering.