I am Hands-On

Even though my focus is digital signal processing, I've come to really love power and energy engineering. I prefer the practical experience of being in the field.

It's all because of my co-op. Before my senior year, I got to spend six months at PECO Energy in Philadelphia. Although I had no experience in the field, my program advisors and the people at PECO made it a very hands-on, interesting experience for me.

Even though my focus is in digital signal processing, I've come to really love power engineering. I picked up a few extra classes just so I could have that career option.

I studied maps and drawings that taught me about the Philadelphia grid and how the grid is connected throughout North America. I also got experience in the field with some of PECO's engineers. They walked me through an exercise they would normally do themselves, teaching me how to navigate through different kinds of drawings and understand the COMPAS and D-MAX systems. I realized I like this career path more than DSP: I prefer the practical experience of being in the field to the theoretical work of signal processing.

While I was at PECO, I needed a subject for my senior project. One of the engineers was researching the cause of the blackout of 2003 and invited me to get involved. I thought it was really interesting. The project is based on gathering information on the characteristics of air conditioners. We plan to present our findings to PECO to help prevent outages in the future. One of the main reasons I'm interested in power engineering is that I like the idea of helping the community by delivering power efficiently and safely.

I am very goal-oriented. I'm also a very outgoing person who cares about others and their surroundings. Right now I'm involved in church outreach, food programs, and senior centers. I participate in these activities almost every weekend. Helping people is one of the main things that I love to do, and power engineering is one of the few engineering fields that would allow me to do that.