The Bridge - Issue 3, 2021 - 37

Student Profile
What don't you like about engineering?
I don't quite like when something goes wrong
unexpectedly without a discernable explanation - it can
be a very amusing circumstance, but also a frustrating
situation. For example, during my sophomore year
of college, I built a circuit using a few logic ICs for my
digital systems lab. Although I had verified that the
circuit design should work and the physical circuit was
wired correctly, my output was incorrect. After some
troubleshooting, I isolated the problem to a signal that
one of the IC chips was receiving - the value was
too low for the chip to register it as a high logic value.
Great, but after more troubleshooting, I still had no idea
why this was happening. You know what worked? The
fundamental principle of troubleshooting: unplugging the
chip and plugging it back in. Yet, I still have no idea why
it wasn't working in the first place.
What is your dream job?
I have not yet determined a specific " dream job, " but
over the years I have been figuring out which paths
seem the most intriguing and fulfilling to me. At this
time, I am heavily leaning toward design or research-anddevelopment-oriented
careers in power engineering, with
a focus on renewable energy and resilient power grids.
Whom do you admire (professionally
and/or personally) and why?
There are a number of people among my family and
friends, colleagues, and connections that I admire for
different reasons, but to highlight one, I greatly admire
my PES mentor John McDonald, P.E. (IEEE-HKN Beta
Chapter), because he is intelligent, generous, and
genuine. On top of that, he is very involved in the
organizations and communities that he is a part of, all
while making time for his family, friends, mentees, and
hobbies (like working out and running 5Ks!).
In what direction do you think engineering
and other IEEE fields of interest are headed
in the next 10 years?
I think that there will be a lot of new and continued
electrification, digitization, and automation and additional
movement toward what we can replace or enhance with
electronics. In the power fields specifically, envisioning
and catalyzing the evolution of the power grid still has
great potential as well as many unanswered questions
related to the integration of new energy sources and grid
topologies, performance and maintenance automation
and data analytics, control and optimization of power
system operations, and efficiency and capabilities of
components, sources, and power conversion.
Sabrina studied Clean Energy Grid Engineering in Scandinavia, during
which she toured a waste-to-energy facility that supports electricity and
district heating in a Swedish town.
What is the most important thing you've
learned in school?
Two of the most important things that I learned in
school, besides technical content relevant to my interests
and direction in power engineering, is asking for help
and learning with the objective of understanding. Asking
for help has long been a struggle for me because I
often feel that I need to be able to figure out or do
something myself. Over time, I realized that asking for
help when I am curious or stuck can be a great learning
opportunity and can assist me in completing my work
more efficiently. As for learning to understand, to me, it
is one thing to learn something enough to regurgitate it,
but I feel much more accomplished and the knowledge
feels much more useful if I can learn it well enough to
understand what the topic is all about, how it works, and
what can I do with it.
What advice would you give to other students
entering college and considering studying
your major?
Electrical engineering is not easy - you can't just see an
electron roving about a circuit - but it is worthwhile with
boundless variety. Ask questions when you are stuck
(or if you are curious!), learn how to operate as part of
a team (especially an interdisciplinary team), leverage
resources for personal, professional, and technical
development, and seek opportunities to practice soft
skills. It is important to do well in school, but it is just as
important to take care of your health and well-being too
(read: please sleep). Also, there will be students who
breeze through a curriculum and make it look easy. For
some of those students, it isn't as easy for them as they
make it look. Regardless, if you find the major interesting
and you really want to be there, be there - it may not
feel easy, it may not be easy, but you're plenty capable.
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37
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The Bridge - Issue 3, 2021

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