Throughout my entire high school
career, I had a plan for what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was
going to go to Penn State, get a teaching degree, move back to Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, and become a high school math teacher at my alma mater. It was my ultimate dream.
Then
slowly but surely, during my senior year of high school, my plan began to change.
My high school calculus teacher convinced me to look into engineering, and I
decided it was a profession worth pursuing. I went to Penn State, attended
WEPO, and decided to major in Mechanical Engineering. By the end of my first
year at college, I was completely happy with my altered plan. I would graduate from Penn State with an
engineering degree, move back to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and get a job close
to home with Westinghouse, or one of the other big engineering companies
located in my area.
At
the beginning of my sophomore year, as I began looking for a summer internship,
there was only one thing I was concerned about: staying close to home. I talked
to every company who had offices in the Pittsburgh area with the hopes that one
of them would give me an offer. A few
months later, I had gotten my wish, and had three options sitting on the table.
I could spend the summer with PPG in Barberton, Ohio, with Shell Oil Company in
New Orleans, Louisiana, or with Westinghouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
I
thought the decision would be easy. Obviously, I was going to choose
Westinghouse. It was my dream job! I would only be working 30 minutes from my
house, in the area where I spent my entire life growing up. But when I looked at my choices from a career
perspective, I found the offer with Shell would be a better opportunity. Sure,
New Orleans was really far away, but Shell also had an office in
Pittsburgh. I decided to accept the
internship with Shell, with the hope that after spending a summer with them in
New Orleans, I could ask to spend the following summer at their office in
Pittsburgh, if everything worked out. I reluctantly packed up my things and
headed to New Orleans with the thought, “Well, it’s only three months.”
A
little over a year later, I am currently spending my second summer in New
Orleans, not
My
advice to you is to not be afraid to step out of your comfort zone! As an
engineer at Penn State, you will be given a myriad of opportunities, and I
highly suggest you take advantage of them.
Study abroad, take that internship across the country, go on a co-op
during the fall or spring semester. Don’t be afraid to do the things that scare
you. You’ll never know if you like something if you never try it! Take it from
me: the high school girl who thought she had it all figured out. I was probably the last person who wanted to
travel the country, let alone the world! I was perfectly content on spending my
entire life in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, never exploring the
other things around me. However, after only a few unique and exciting
experiences, my entire prospective has changed, and I could not be happier that
it did. Eventually, I think that I would
like to end up back in Pittsburgh, but I have an entire lifetime to figure that
out. While I’m young, I’d like to
travel, see the world, and allow my engineering career to take me wherever it
may! As Ernest Hemingway once said, “It is good to have an end to journey
toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” So, as you begin your career at Penn State,
try to step out of your comfort zone, and take advantage of those opportunities
which will make your journey unforgettable. Trust me, you won’t regret it.
Katie Ciccaglione is a senior majoring in Mechanical Engineering, and she is the Professional Development Lead for WEPO '14!
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