Danny Cao

EE 494 Program Exploration

Cumulative Reflection

As noted above, my name is Danny Cao and I have been a part of the Iowa State electrical

engineering program since the start of my freshman year during the Fall of 2019. I knew that I wanted to

be in an engineering program and had already known that Iowa State would be the best decision in

terms of an engineering college because of their reputation for the program. However, before coming to

Iowa State, I was not very confident in my decision of pursing an electrical engineering degree. It wasn’t

until my first few EE courses such as EE185 did my lack of certainty in sticking with electrical engineering

go away. Compared to the other general education courses, the introductory EE courses presented a

different approach in learning and thinking as well as provided resources that were very beneficial to me

as a student when it came to problem solving and managing my professional career. Given those

resources and strategies, they have been applied during my continuation at Iowa State in both the

classroom and in the professional workspace.

Some of these resources and learning strategies stemmed from the previously mentioned

introductory EE courses. Coming into college, I had breezed through high school with an unhealthy work

mentality, but luckily, these EE courses taught me that an effective student needs to explore outside the

classroom and utilize resources such as textbooks, other peers, office hours, tutors, etc. in order to learn

effectively and to drop the assumption and habit that resulted from high school of only coming into

class and not spending anytime learning outside the classroom. As a student, I needed to go over the

textbook, look at the lecture slides ahead of time, and use the classroom as a supplement to my

learning. And to also reach out to other peers, teaching assistants, and professors for more assistance

and learning opportunities as well as to develop networking skills.

 During my Junior year at Iowa State, I had the fortunate experience of being contacted by an

outside recruiter for a part time student position at John Deere. While I wasn’t confident if I wanted to

pursue a career path with Deere as I had felt like my previous internship experiences with them did not

utilize my major, I was hesitant to reach out and apply for the part time position as this was for a

mechanical product engineering team. However, I was convinced by other engineering peers to try out

the position as it was a year-round position and not a summer internship which could lead me to

learning more skills to utilize for future employment. I was able to obtain the position and immediately

begun to network with other teams in order to get more degree related assignments. I was able to

contact with another team that hosted mainly electrical engineers, and similar to having to spend time

outside the class to efficiently learn, I also had to spend time outside of work from time to time to learn

new programs if I was planning on getting involved with the electrical team. Learning these new

programs had allowed me to work with the electrical integration team in tandem with the mechanical

product team. Programs such as a CAPITAL logic allowed me to draft electrical schematics and I’ve had

to learn the process of implementing proper loads for sensors in order to implement them on machines.

Having the opportunity to work for two different function teams have been an incredibly useful

experience in personal and professional development.

With that said, Iowa State has definitely been unique experience for me. I have been a teaching

assistant for the EE201 course where providing guidance and teaching other peers have been a bit of a

challenging experience for me, but it allowed me to take more of a formal leadership role in the

classroom. The general elective courses have been some of the classes that kept me sane during the

harder periods of EE courses and allowed for a much more manageable work life balance. Some of the

general electives were also very interesting especially a Russian elective course noted as RUS375. I was

able to take the course right before the Ukrainian invasion, so it was an eye-opening experience seeing
and understanding the impact of the invasion on the world theater and some of the mentality and

reasoning behind the Russia’s plan.

From a reflection standpoint, I do believe that I could’ve improved in one area, and that was

getting connected and involved with the learning communities and other learning activities.

Unfortunately, I still do not have time to accommodate this and even now, as I near the end, my

schedule continues to be packed full and there is little time for extracurriculars. Either way, my time and

experience here at State has had its ups and downs. I’ve gotten to meet a lot of talented individuals

during my time here and the courses offered at Iowa State has prepared me for the workforce. The

common struggle of dealing with engineering courses has definitely helped me make meaningful

connections with classmate, roommates, and other peers and I do feel prepared to transition from the

student life to the professional workforce.