Career By Design

After multiple years of STEM outreach events, I have started to include some common misconceptions in my slides when I talk to kids.

The one I have found most important to cover is that you do not need to be the best in Math and Science to become a civil engineer! You definitely need to like these topics as it will be a good amount of your job, but that you not to be the top of your class in these topics. 

What are the most common MisconSTEMtions (misconceptions) have you found that students have about studying STEM, or Engineering specifically? 

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Danielle Schroeder EIT, A.M.ASCE (She/her)
Associate Engineer
Pennoni Associates
Philadelphia PA
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That is a great one. It also goes the other way, that if you LOVE math, you might not be using as much of it as you'd expect.

Another common misconception that we tend to cover at our outreach events is that as civil engineers we don't typically build things, we design them and someone else builds them. We have a couple of variations of activities we've done where a team brainstorms what they're going to build on paper, then we surprise them and make them build each others' plans and see how it goes. Then we discuss how vital good communication skills are, which is yet another misconception that engineers are shy and don't talk much.

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Alexa Ducioame P.E., M.ASCE
Project Engineer
Moore Engineering, Inc.
West Fargo ND
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I surely agree you, I had actually not really thought of it. And actually my eyes are open to see that there is much we are able to, there's plenty of room to do more. Maybe I think that if we start, little by little then a lot can can be done. My suggestion to the question asked, "wherever you want to start from, know that you will have an adventure and you will love it."

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ALLAN AKATWIJUKA
Kampala
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-05-2020 11:16 AM
From: Alexa Ducioame
Subject: Common MisconSTEMtions?

That is a great one. It also goes the other way, that if you LOVE math, you might not be using as much of it as you'd expect.

Another common misconception that we tend to cover at our outreach events is that as civil engineers we don't typically build things, we design them and someone else builds them. We have a couple of variations of activities we've done where a team brainstorms what they're going to build on paper, then we surprise them and make them build each others' plans and see how it goes. Then we discuss how vital good communication skills are, which is yet another misconception that engineers are shy and don't talk much.

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Alexa Ducioame P.E., M.ASCE
Project Engineer
Moore Engineering, Inc.
West Fargo ND
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Another misconception I've come across includes the opposite issue to the one Danielle highlighted - students believe that they wont need to worry about good writing or communication or presentation skills because "engineering isnt english, its math and science". I've met plenty of students who were not the top of their class, but were able to "sell a project" or tell a story that drew in the attention of their peers much better than some of their counterparts.

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Christopher Seigel P.E., M.ASCE
Civil Engineer
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It's not just students that have misconceptions, it's the general public. If I tell someone I'm a civil engineer, I usually get one of the following three responses - if they even know civil engineers exist: "You build bridges." "Oh, you drive trains" and "that sounds like a lot of math". The recent push for STEM outreach in schools I hope will lead to more people knowing we exist and that we do much more than design bridges. 

I also agree with Christopher, and had that same misconception myself. Even in college we spent so much time solving problems that we didn't really touch on technical writing much. It wasn't until I started my career that I realized that engineering involves A LOT of writing and communication skills are extremely important.


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Maegan Nunley P.E., M.ASCE
President
Luna Engineering
Columbus OH
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Ha! My freshman college roommate asked me about 3 weeks into the semester "when do you guys start learning about how trains work?"

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Christopher Seigel P.E., M.ASCE
Civil Engineer
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-07-2020 09:25 AM
From: Maegan Nunley
Subject: Common MisconSTEMtions?

It's not just students that have misconceptions, it's the general public. If I tell someone I'm a civil engineer, I usually get one of the following three responses - if they even know civil engineers exist: "You build bridges." "Oh, you drive trains" and "that sounds like a lot of math". The recent push for STEM outreach in schools I hope will lead to more people knowing we exist and that we do much more than design bridges.

I also agree with Christopher, and had that same misconception myself. Even in college we spent so much time solving problems that we didn't really touch on technical writing much. It wasn't until I started my career that I realized that engineering involves A LOT of writing and communication skills are extremely important.


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Maegan Nunley P.E., M.ASCE
President
Luna Engineering
Columbus OH
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