10/19/2023

A Reflective Journey: Navigating Your Cumulative Experience at Iowa

State University
Eli Schaffer
Core classes help engineers get a firm understanding of what it takes to be an adept engineer.
Once we take these classes there’s no limit to what we can or can’t do. The core classes at Iowa State are
diverse and cover a wide range of engineering fields and requirements. These all combine to one major
and how each degree can use the physics, math, communication, and science skills they learned in their
core classes. As engineers, we may think that some of these classes are boring or not worth our time,
but if you look at it in the right frame of mind there’s always something to learn.

I started college during the fall of 2020. This was the time where COVID-19 ruled our lives and
dictated our well-being. We had classes all online, which is like some of the professional work
experiences I’ve had. There are meetings and other phone calls that companies do only remotely, so the
beginning of my college experience being purely online helped me with my time management skills. As
the years progressed, more and more classes went back to normal, but there are still some that are
online. This also helps with time management because you can’t forget the online classes. Another good
skill that I’ve learned was effective team leadership skills. I have been the head of two or three projects
while in college and each of them were very different. I was able to transition skills from one project to
the next all while helping the day-to-day production of the team. One way that I have started to widen
my learning would be trying to understand what goes into taking the FE and PE. These are exams that
engineers take outside of college to obtain a Professional Engineering license. I first learned about these
from an internship that I had, but then I brought that information to my peers and a group of us decided
to take it. This was a big step to start realizing the bigger picture of what it takes to be a real engineer.
The career fairs at Iowa State are truly one of a kind. Being at these events are a huge opportunity and
reliability at the same time. You can meet industry professionals and talk to them about your academic
and professional careers while learning about what they do in the real world of engineering. These brief
meetings help us work on our communication skills. It also gives us a chance to reflect on all the work we
have done as individuals throughout our college career.

One way that my education has helped me embrace new challenges would be when I started my
second internship. I had no clue how to use the software that they used there when I first started. I did a
quick search on the internet to see if I could find a guide to using the program but that turned up empty.
After I did that, I went to my manager and explained my predicament. He then was able to issue me a
tutorial that the software had. These are the same steps as asking a professor or TA for help when you
are unable to understand a problem. If I could go back to the beginning of my college career, I would
have taken my international perspective and US diversity classes first. This would have gotten them out
of the way and helped me focus on my engineering degree towards the end of college. I would pay more
attention to economics and how to manage my money well. I should have tried harder to get another
internship my first summer of college and paid more attention in my linear algebra and matrices class.
Going back, I would also thank my entire EE201 class. I met some lifelong friends in that class, and we’ve
been in almost every class together since.

One new engineering topic that I learned while at Iowa State would be the physics and intricate
knowledge of transformers. I am currently working on a senior design team that will need to use
 10/19/2023

transformers and a substation. A substation is a very large transformer that converts the voltage in the
power lines from a lower to a higher voltage or vice versa. I first learned about this topic in EE303 and
then got further information in my EE456 class. I plan on working with substations in the future for a
career, so this information was good to get and understand. In EE230 we were assigned some circuits
and to analyze them. We also built an IR remote and receiver with basic circuit components. We were
allowed to input a DC voltage and we were expected to have a receiver that worked 2 ft away for two
different frequencies. For this project we had to use knowledge of filters, oscillators, operational
amplifiers, and general circuit assembly. When I start learning a concept, I start in the classroom like
everyone else. I then use the homework to apply my knowledge and see what I need more studying on.
Then when the exam comes along, I am prepared to take it and I have a good understanding of what I
need to focus on. This setup works well in most classes but there are some that I can’t do this with. For
example, one of my general education classes was MKT 340 and I was very unfamiliar with all those
topics. I had to spend lots of time outside of class reviewing topics we covered as well as the slides and
reading the book to understand. This all paid off in the end though because I got the grade I was looking
for.

I look forward to the future and what it has in store for me. I am excited to take the
Fundamentals of Engineering as well as the Professional Engineering exams. These both require a
tremendous amount of studying and time in the field before you can take them. I anticipate learning a
bunch of new topics to pass these exams. I look forward to attending seminars and other trainings at
whatever company I work for to continue my education. Whenever I start a new job there will be lots of
opportunities for learning what they do as well as how they do it. I cherish these moments because I
think we learn something every day so why not make it something that applies to my career. I plan on
surfing the web to find new and exciting solutions to whatever engineering problem I work on.

Iowa State has both shaped and helped me define the engineer I plan on becoming. These
classes and concepts that I learned here are applicable to everywhere in the workplace. From the
professors to the new friends I made, I truly enjoyed my college experience at Iowa State, and I am sad
to see it end. Using the discussions and course materials I plan on being the best engineer I can be. The
concepts I learned in freshman year will stick with me forever and so will all of them from senior year.