Let's talk about engineering

Driving around St. Louis

First day of engineering internship, my dad dropped me off downtown at Ms. Young’s (“please, call me Nicole”) office. She is a civil engineer who used to work for big companies, but started off on her own about two years ago. She’s her own one-woman company, which she runs out of her flat downtown. I’ve got to say, that’s the kind of life I imagine for myself: in a perfect sized flat in a city somewhere. It’s small, but light, so it feels really spacious. Monday morning, Nicole went through boatloads of emails to figure out her schedule for the week. From what I can tell, her job seems a lot like my mom’s, only with engineering instead of public health research. I say this because the management system seems similar, with clients and project managers and proposals and all of that, and even the offices smell the same, though this is all probably just regular work life, but I have only been exposed to it through my mom’s job. Nicole is the person who goes to clients and convinces them that she is the best person for the job. Yes, she does math problems, yes, she does problem solving, but she also puts teams together and does a lot of self-promotion. This distribution of tasks is because she does not have a marketing team like larger firms probably do. To be honest, I’m not 100% clear, but I’m sure I’ll understand once I get closer to actually joining the workforce.

Ok so on to what we did that day. Literally, it was driving around all day. There is a small neighborhood by Grant’s farm with storm water drainage problems, which Nicole and a couple other people are designing some fixes to the sewer system for. Across the street from Nicole’s building is office space where two of the men on the team work. We walked across the street and asked about some plans, which were a bit unclear. Then we took Nicole’s car and drove around and around a couple blocks to get to a building near the Arch even though there were a lot of closed roads so that Nicole could drop something off at that office, too. The roadwork that was going on all around us was for various projects, like the cover over the road and general sewer maintenance, all of which Nicole new about in greater detail than anyone else I’ve talked too. Driving around with an engineer gave me a different perspective on the world, as if the thin layer of what I saw was peeled back to give me a glimpse of the inner workings of the city. We drove down to the neighborhood with the wonky sewer system to see what the site is actually like, which is apparently very important to keep engineers somewhat grounded in reality. Apparently, engineers will sit out in the rain to observe the flow or storm water, which is a pretty funny mental image. We also went to the main building of the St. Louis Sewer System (I can’t remember the name, but I would recognize the acronym if someone said it), the traffic control center, which was a giant room full of screens showing traffic all around the city and people sitting around with headsets, and two larger companies. One company is owned by a mutual friend, who didn’t recognize me at first, because what is Rajeev’s daughter doing at his office? Then I talked to a lady at B&V, which is a huge firm. Engineers do a lot. My friends’ firm does all of the engineering for the botanical gardens. Someone’s job is to climb on those signs over the roads and test them for safety. Engineers are also everywhere. Offices are full of them. I never realized how much engineering there is around St. Louis, but I think, like with the peeling back of the first layer of the city, engineers go around beneath the public eye unless you go out looking for them. We went to Parkway Central so Nicole could show me the compressed natural gas fuel station she helped design. The school buses with the green stripes on the side are the ones that run on CNG. The team thought they would have four months, but thanks to the timing of the grant that allowed it, they only had two weeks, but it came together anyway. We toured a water treatment site, which is pretty high security and I don’t know how we managed to talk to the right people to get in, but it felt pretty cool, pretty high stakes espionage or something like that. I had to wear goggles and a hard hat (internship = dress like mom + hard hat).

Water purification is a lot louder than I thought it would be. We also went as far north as the airport so she could show me a wastewater storage building that is painted to look like an actual building so people forget that there’s a building full of wastewater next to their house, which I think is pretty funny. That was day one. Yay! Engineering!

Carbondale Waste Water

            Day two of engineering was…eye opening. I met Nicole at 7 and we drove two and a half hours to Carbondale, Illinois. On the way there, she told me more about the business while I tried to keep my eyes open (we drive this way to my Grandma’s house a lot, and I habitually fall asleep). We talked about technical stuff, with biological oxygen demand and all that stuff I learned in APES, and business stuff like the process of clients choosing you. And politics are involved in everything. In Carbondale, we toured two wastewater treatment plants. To spare you all the details, just know that I now know what happens when you flush the toilet, and it involves oxygen, “bugs” (the engineering term for waste eating bacteria), and a lot of actual insects. Basically, it was gross, but fascinating, because I got to see exactly what we had learned about in APES. I also know that I do not want to go into wastewater treatment. I had to confront some of my greatest fears: platforms made of grating, dead birds, and confined spaces, so that was fun. It wasn’t actually fun. It was mildly traumatizing, but I faked my way through it all. It is a lot easier getting into wastewater treatment plants than water treatment plants, especially when they are expecting you. Then we went to meet with the head engineer of Carbondale (really important guy to the area (?)) to talk about projects in the area. Nicole basically went to Carbondale to make herself even more of a familiar face to potentially get work in the future, because she knows they will have to update their facilities soon. The EPA changes the standards on what amounts of nitrogen, phosphorous, etc. are allowed in the water these plants release, so when a change is not able to be met by the facility, it has to be updated, which is where Nicole comes in, to help plan the changes that will be made, hopefully small tweaks instead of giant overhauls. Then traffic on the way back was absolutely terrible, wow St. Louis is crowded.

Engineer’s Club

Monday night, I went to the monthly engineer’s club meeting. Well, there were about 80 people there and only about 1/6 of them were women. During the meeting, I found myself thinking “oh my gosh I don’t want to be an engineer” but actually, I just don’t think I want to grow up. These “parties” don’t seem to be very much fun. But then I realized that these are not parties, this is business. Let me repeat: this is work. I, a high schooler, moving out of the state next year, received three business cards, saw loads more handed over, and was privy to watching two potential job opportunities. And apparently, when I mentioned our visit to Carbondale to some guy, he got a look in his eye, so Nicole knows that he knows that she’s looking at opportunities there and wow this is pretty sneaky for a bunch of people in polo shirts. I learned even more about the business, like the way travel opportunities work and the frequent sexism and ageism of the old men in charge. Though the president was a woman, which was cool, yet surprising. Everyone seemed to have graduated from Missouri S&T in Rolla, Mizzou, SIUE, or somewhere else close. I also re-realized how new sustainable engineering is, because when I told people my college and major, then leaned their heads back a little and said “oh” and then something about how warm and far away Arizona is. Something else that hit me was how close I feel I am to the professional life, but how far others see me. Specifically, when setting up this project, my dad wanted to help, because I know Nicole through him, with their leadership Focus St. Louis group thing, and I told him that he was not to help out at all under any circumstances. So, of course, he told this to Nicole, and she told these men we were talking too. I laughed and was like “oh, you know parents,” but actually, there is a possibility that I could work with them in the future. I don’t think I want them knowing this story. I think I should have a conversation with my parents. Of course, they will probably just spread this story around, too. Best thing is to move out of state. Arizona sounds nice. I hear they have a great sustainability program.