Joe Schurer

Mr. Clark

Honors English 12

12/20/17

Career Reflection

Throughout my time in highschool I have worked on discerning what career path I should

follow. My choice of field has been informed by the activities I have participated in, the classes I

have taken, and the others that I have met. I find engineering interesting because of how much of

our modern world seems to rely on engineering and much of the advance of technology is due to

the efforts of engineers.

One of the first experiences in my lift that led me towards engineering was my

participation in FIRST robotics. I started with the program in middle school doing FLL. In this

program we built and programmed LEGO robots to accomplish various tasks. My participation

in this program gave me a basic understanding of what engineering is and what it involves. We

then moved onto FTC in high school. This involved more of a challenge than FLL and we began

to custom design robots using professional tools like 3D printers, laser cutters, and mills. This

participation in robotics gave me my first hands on experiences in engineering. This led me to

begin to more seriously consider engineering because of how I enjoyed my time spent

participating in these programs. I learned about iterative design and got satisfaction from

designing and building something and then watching it work. I would generally say that I am an

analytical thinker. I enjoy approaching a problem logically and analyzing solutions. When I can

do this and find a successful solution I can feel proud of the work I have done.