Career By Design

I had lunch with an architect a couple weeks ago.  It was a great experience to learn about his practice and how he approached problems.  The problems were a bit different than engineering problems, but in the end the aim was the same to best serve the client.  I also recall going to the dentist as a kid and as I was working towards earning my P.E. license, he was working towards his retirement.  I remember how I begin to notice his professionalism and how I could relate to that more and more.  In witnessing at least 25 years of his practice and talking about my work through college, I could see him more as a role model.

Do you have any mentors or colleagues who are not engineers?  How do you relate to them?  What can you learn from them?

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Chad Morrison P.E., F.ASCE
Professional Engineer
Greenville RI
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While not a role model from industry per say, I've always considered myself fortunate to have a father who worked in many different levels of management in non-engineering roles throughout his life. He taught me (and still does teach me) many things about the non-technical side of the working world. Ways to improve my communication, my resume, how to always network, "do what you say you will do", and how to not get lost in the weeds of what you're working on were all areas where he helped me find some perspective.

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Christopher Seigel P.E., M.ASCE
Civil Engineer
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During my time obtaining my Master's degree, I've been meeting up with a colleague who is also working towards Statistics-Analytics. Although he has more experience than me, that isn't for Civil Engineering, he's been showing me more lessons about long-term insight outside of work.

I have been as devoted as I've needed to be for my last classes of the curriculum, but it's kept me stuck in a routine for months. He reminded me to get glimpses of my local surroundings every now and again, and that for so long, humans have been doing so without screens for total navigation. And during that time, we have been meeting up outside of classes to focus on the one we have together. The professor has given us all kinds of videos about the content, and the colleague took it upon himself to have us review each one together, so that we could remember everything from the videos. That is a far more productive way to study, after all.

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Alexander Granato A.M.ASCE
Student
Bexley OH
granato.3@...
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