Reflections with Gabriel Joseph

Last week we had a really dynamic conversation with Gabriel Joseph, thank you for watching that. I met him at a dinner and we hit it off right away.? He was so excited for his engineering program, I knew that I had to invite him on the spot to be a part of this.?

Responsibility to be Helpful

Gabriel said a lot of great things, but one thing that really hit me was how he talked about how helpful his professors were and how he's already feeling a very positive responsibility to turn that around for his classmates and be helpful when he can.?

It's similar, but not the same as what we talked about after Mackenzie's video. ? With her we had talked about how in college she found those clubs and other activities that are really having an impact in where she's starting her career.??

When we are with our engineering students, whether it's actually in the classroom or informally in other mentoring situations, they are watching those habits. They are watching and seeing what those positive habits are that are making a difference for them as they are starting out their career.? They are understanding how they internalize those as being part of what the profession means.

I really enjoyed hearing how he was able to take that and shout out to those professors who have been helping him and didn't just talk about the shout out. He was telling me about them before we even hit record on the video and how important that was for him to see.? That should be what engineering is. Now he is in the classroom helping his students with CAD and the CNC and MATLAB and the other programs that he talked about.

Creating Positive Habits

As we're working with the students, remember how much they are paying attention to these positive habits of the profession. They're getting the technical pieces, they're getting the mathematics, they're getting the equations, but are they also getting what it means to really be a contributing engineer and to be part of the engineering community??

Even if they're not articulating it in those words, they're watching those habits. As we're working with these young engineers, we need to help build and create an engineering community, and that community of professionals that really will continue to inspire our engineering.