Plan For Career | Portfolio

Job Shadowing Experiences

RA Building and Design

(Sophomore Year)

Before this job shadow experience, I already had a good knowledge of this field because I work in construction. However, I wanted to learn a little more about the planning side and what engineering aspects go into building a house. I job shadowed Rick Anderson , the owner and operator of RA Building&Design. The first part of the day we went over the blue prints and Rick showed me how he draws them up

on a computer program. He

also taught me how

to read the blueprints.

Then we went to the

job site and met with the

costumers and showed

them the plans for the

house and they were

very pleased. After lunch

we went to another job site

and inspected a deck that

was being built and talked

to the costumer about what

trim they wanted on the

deck and the different costs.

Wilcox Machine/Automotive Company (Sophomore Year)

I've always had a passion for cars and working on them, I started the automotive pathway when I came to ilead and really enjoyed it but I decided that perusing a career in electrical engineering would be a better option for my future. I choose to job shadow Joseph Wilcox because I wanted to revisit the automotive field. Joseph mostly does custom suspension, fabrication and engine building. While I was there he was in the process of building a show truck from the ground up as well as some other small jobs. This was a great experience because Joseph not only does basic mechanic work he also builds custom parts with his CNC machines. While this was a great experience I feel that the engineering field is still my best option but I plan to keep mechanics as a passion/side career for the future.

Heavy Equipment Operator (Junior Year)

I have been working in the construction industry for going on four years and one of my biggest areas of interest is heavy equipment operation. I plan to invest in equipment and grow a excavation company to run as a second business. I have ran various machines but I wanted to talk to someone

who has done this day in and day

out. I chose to job shadow Matt

for several reasons. One being

that he has had over 10 years of

experience and has ran a small

excavation company himself.

He also has a Heavy Equipment

certification allowing him to work

for the state and other major

corporations. We ran machinery

most of the day so there wasn't

a lot of talking back and forth but I gained knowledge about the pressure on operators to get jobs done on time. He also warned me of the slow work in winters. He also told me the reason he stop running his own business was because of the 2008 housing crash. Taking this into consideration I still plan of investing in excavation.

Arbor Trims Tree Service (Freshman Year)

I have always wanted to go into business for myself one day. I plan to go into the construction/engineering industry but I hope to develop more than one business over time. I job shadowed my dad who is also a business owner. I learned a lot about what it takes to run a business as far as paperwork and office work is concerned. I also learned a lot about how to be a leader among men. I watch my dad do office work for a couple hours and then we went out and worked with the crew for a while cutting down some trees. I already knew how a tree crew operates from growing up and working for dad myself but it was really eye opening to see just how much goes on in business behind the curtain.

Constriction Business Owner (Junior Year)

One of my main goals is to grow businesses in the construction field. I chose to job shadow Rick Anderson who owns a small construction company in Shelbyville Ky. I road around with Rick as he met with the foreman and suppliers. I also spoke with Rick about customer relations and how he presents

his brand to clients. It was a

very eye opening experience

to see the inner workings

behind the work. One of the

biggest take away's was the

long hours Rick puts in on a

daily basis to keep things

running smoothly.

Construction Foreman (Junior Year)

Due to my interest in becoming a construction business owner I wanted to get the perspective of the foremen who run job sites. I choose to job shadow Ben, a longtime friend. Ben has been in the industry for 25 years and has also been in business for himself for 9 years. We talked a lot about the relationships between foremen and owners as well as foremen and workers. I saw Ben's leadership skills on full display as he ran the job site and kept all the workers in line. I saw how great foremen are essential to the construction industry.

Electrical Engineers (Senior Year)

Click to Watch

The COVID-19 outbreak lead to the cancellation of my scheduled job shadowing experiences at QK4 and CamTech. Instead I did a a virtual job shadow of two electrical engineers from home.

First Engineer, JB:

JB is an electrical engineer working for a power distribution plant. He has worked in both systems technology and distribution technology. In systems technology JB tot a lot of circuit designing whereas in distribution technology he did more traditional engineering. Meaning he worked with resistors and electrical distribution. As JB got higher up in the distribution company he took on more project management roles and leading analisis teams to find issues and solutions. This requires coordination with other people in the plant and creating cost analysis and clerical work to get these projects approved. JB helped show how much paper work is required for engineers verses just technical work.

JB explained many different expectations/realities of electrical engineers. One thing he talked about was how little high level math is actually used in everyday engineering. JB also explained how important the financial side of engineering is. Successful engineers must understand and be able to manipulate financial aspects of electrical companies. Being able to make companies money is how engineers rise through the ranks.

JB also explained how important it is to have a mentor to be a ble to learn from. He also explained how hard it is to find good engineering mentors due to their technical mindset. JB also exposed how important “on-job” training is. JB talked about how scarce entry level jobs are. Unlike computer science and other STEM fields the technical engineering that electrical engineers need to perform can’t be taught in a classroom or on the internet. JB believes that he only uses ten to twenty percent of his college curriculum on the job.

Second Engineer, Louis:

Louis is an electrical engineer who also has a masters in mathematics and a minor in physics. Louis also worked as an electrician while going to school. Louis highly recommends this experience for those who want to work in power industries and do hands on work. This is something I hadn't looked into so it was very insightful. Louis started his own business doing consulting. Louis has consultant contracts with Lockheed Martin and Amec. This was interesting to learn about because I want to go into business doing consulting. One thing I didn't realize was how important the Professional Engineering licence is to have a consulting business. Louise's first Job required him to know CAD, this is another thing I didn't realize would be helpful in the electrical engineering industry.

Louis recommends going to a smaller company after leaving college, this will give you more variety of tasks and more responsibility. This will give you the knowledge to get higher paying jobs. After acquiring this knowledge you can go make more money and rise through the ranks at larger companies. Louis also exposed how hard it is being a entry level engineer is, senior engineers often dump their work load onto the lower level engineers, this is something that graduates should be prepared for. Louis also exposed the reality of the pay. He said he graduated school believing he would make 100k a year. This did not happen. In reality he was making 60-80k and was working 50+ hours a week.

Certifications and Skills

Engineering Certifications/Awards

Robotics coding certification from Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute (This certification was given for completing the Carnegie Mellon Robotics coding course and passing the exam)
REC Pre-Engineering Industry Certification in Mechanical Engineering (This is a college level certification from the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation)
REC Pre-Engineering Industry Certification in Electrical Engineering (This is a college level certification from the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation)
REC Pre-Engineering Industry Certification in Engineering Technology (This is a college level certification from the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation)

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