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There are few degrees as versatile as mechanical engineering. MEs can go into the auto, energy or HVAC and construction industries, design aircraft or submarines, or focus on sales or academics.
Despite the bright prospects, Ray Mellado, CEO of the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (HENAAC), worries about the small number of Hispanic students majoring in ME. “Only 6,000 to 7,000 BS degrees are given to Hispanics each year,” he says.
He’d like to see that number go up. “There is a great need for Hispanic MEs. People want to have a company that looks like America. To do that, more Hispanics need to be in the field.”
Mellado has three bits of advice for students who are thinking about a degree in mechanical engineering: do well academically; get as much experience as possible through internships and co-ops; and seek out mentors.
Andrea Sargeant works in Bell Helicopter’s propulsion group
Andrea Sargeant has spent her life surrounded by strong women. It was their influence, she says, that helped steer her into engineering. Her older sisters all went into technical or professional careers (one is an ME), and their successes showed Sargeant that she too could follow any career path as long as she was willing to work hard.
Her real role model, however, is her mother, who didn’t have a technical career like her daughters, but whose independence, perseverance and strength rubbed off on them. “My mom is a Mexican-American and a single mother. It was mostly the two of us while I was growing up.”
Sargeant was raised in Arlington, TX and went to the University of Texas (UT, Austin, TX), where she graduated with a BS in aerospace engineering in 2004. Her course work, she notes, was very close to that of an ME and many of her classes were actually in ME.
School work wasn’t easy for her. “It was a struggle for me to get my degree, but I always had my eye on the goal,” she says. “Now I have so many opportunities, and I’ve been able to travel and see the world. I wouldn’t have been able to do that without my education.”
At first she wasn’t sure what her career direction should be. She did a civil engineering internship in college, which helped her build up her technical experience.
She started job hunting during her junior year, a process that she recalls as overwhelming. She attended a lot of job fairs, but found herself competing for time with recruiters. She decided to see if there was another way to get her name and resume to companies.
“I learned about a database run by the UT College of Engineering,” she says. “You submit your resume to it and companies read them over, make suggestions and, if interested, arrange to interview you.”
That’s how she found her current job at Bell Helicopter (Ft Worth, TX). The company saw her resume and invited her to interview when it came to campus. Bell followed up with a second interview and made an offer.
“I liked that process better,” she says. “I felt like I knew what companies were definitely interested in me, and I got a lot of feedback.”
Sargeant has been with Bell Helicopter for three years. She is an engineer in propulsion integration and analysis. “I currently work on ice protection in the propulsion group. I do research and development on future products and product improvement.”
She adds that, despite being a female with a Hispanic background, she never feels different from her co-workers. “I guess it shows that if you are comfortable in your environment, you’ll do okay.”
DuPont engineer Kirstin Huesmann designs machinery
It is almost impossible to grow up in Delaware and not be familiar with DuPont (Wilmington, DE). It is one of the state’s largest employers. For Kirstin Huesmann, it was also the company her father worked for, a factor she believes helped her when she began looking for a job.
“It was a definite advantage knowing something about the company,” she says. “DuPont made me an offer while I was still in college. I chose DuPont because the program I’m in allows you to try different jobs.” She took her position as a development engineer after she graduated from the University of Delaware (Newark, DE) with a BSME in 2003.
Having a family member working for her future employer, however, had no bearing on her career choice. In fact, Huesmann says, it was her Argentinean mother who steered her into engineering.
“When I was a kid I liked to break apart my toys to see how they worked,” says Huesmann. “After a while my parents bought me toys that were meant to be taken apart. My mom suggested I go into engineering. It turned out to be a good fit.”
Her mother also helped broaden Huesmann’s cultural experiences by taking her and her sister to Argentina. “We have other family who moved here to Delaware, but I’m still eager to go back and visit Argentina again.”
Right now her job with DuPont has her designing machinery, everything from little parts for R&D to big parts for large factory equipment.
Huesmann is also involved with recruitment and has worked in the DuPont booth at job fairs. She too advises ME students to get experience. “Companies are looking for a lot of work experience in engineering, like co-ops and internships. DuPont, for example, looks for ME students who have at least two or three real job experiences.
“And do your senior design project in conjunction with a company. That counts as experience too.”
Michael Torres: an engineer in training at Toyota
When Michael Torres started college his career goal was to be a doctor. He attended the University of California-Davis and chose ME for his undergraduate study.
“I found the courses, especially the hands-on ones, to be pretty interesting. And math has always been my strong suit,” he says. “I continued to pursue the field and did internships, and I quickly developed a fondness for mechanical engineering.” He graduated in 2006 with a BSME.
A positive aspect of ME is its versatility, Torres points out. “You can take the major on a number of career paths,” he says. “I have friends who got a degree in ME and are now looking to get into law school for patent law.”
As a student, Torres, who grew up in the Bay Area, did an internship with New United Motor Manufacturing Inc (NUMMI, Freemont, CA), a joint venture of General Motors and Toyota. He was also president of the UC-Davis chapter of SHPE. Those experiences looked good on his resume, which he began submitting to companies during his senior year.
Then, as he was preparing for SHPE’s yearly national conference, “Chris Hardy of Toyota came across my resume and saw my internship with NUMMI,” Torres says. The two met at the conference and spoke about career opportunities. This meeting was followed up with a more formal phone interview and an onsite interview. “About a week later I got a letter with a job offer.”
Torres believes his involvement with SHPE was beneficial to his job search. “I was the first generation in my family to go to college. I didn’t know a lot of people in the professional world, and I didn’t know how to approach getting a job. Through SHPE, I got that exposure and it helped me tremendously.”
At Toyota, Torres is an engineer in training (EIT) and has already completed two of his three required rotations. His first was in the corporate headquarters in Kentucky, where he read about and studied the company. Three months later he moved into his second rotation at Toyota Motor Manufacturing in Indiana, where the company’s Tundra, Sienna and Sequoia models are built. He worked on several major projects over a nine-month period. He finished at the end of June 2007 and is now in Long Beach, CA at Toyota Auto Body in his third rotation. “On this rotation I’m learning about different aspects of production and engineering.”
After he finishes he’ll get a permanent placement. The EIT program at Toyota is relatively new, and Torres’ group is only the second to go through it.
“Mechanical engineering isn’t easy,” Torres says, “so it’s good to speak to as many engineers as possible, take internships and get involved with engineering groups.”
Pedro Gonzalez: product engineer for John Deere
Pedro Gonzalez grew up in Mexico and began his college education there. When he was nineteen years old he decided to join his mother, who returned to her home state of Illinois with his sister after divorcing his father. Gonzalez intended to continue on the educational path he started in Mexico.
“I originally wanted to be a mechanic when I was in high school,” he says, “but there weren’t many opportunities available.”
He enjoyed figuring out how things worked and thought engineering would be a good career choice. He knew, however, that math and science didn’t come easy to him. Whereas others would have quit rather than struggle with those subjects, Gonzalez persevered. “Practice helps a lot,” he says. “Retaking some classes gave me the knowledge I needed and enabled me to later apply it to my engineering courses. That’s when the math finally made sense to me.”
Gonzalez went to Southern Illinois University (Carbondale, IL) and graduated with a BSME in 2004. In his junior year he started looking for internships. “I wanted job experience,” he says, “and I wanted to find out how to use all the information I was learning in my classes.”
He submitted his resume to many companies and wound up interning at a company with which he was quite familiar: John Deere (Moline, IL). “My parents both worked for John Deere in Mexico, and my mom now works for the company in Moline.” Gonzalez works at the John Deere product engineering center in Waterloo, IA.
Gonzalez interned with John Deere in 2003 and was hired full time after his graduation. Because of his internship, he didn’t have to go through as extensive a recruiting process as other students.
Today Gonzalez is a product engineer in the company’s agricultural equipment division. His job is to design components for an agricultural tractor. “I ensure that all the designs pass test requirements.” The tractor he is working on is a global tractor, he adds. “It’s made in different plants around the world, so I also need to make sure it meets regulations in other countries.”
Gonzalez says he never imagined himself designing tractors. “But that’s the beauty of ME. There are so many different directions it can take you.”
Johana Rico is a sales engineer at Johnson Controls
As a kid Johana Rico liked assembling furniture as well as taking apart her Nintendo system and putting it back together. An engineering major in college seemed like the next logical step. “I went with ME because it gave me the most options,” she says.
Her parents came to Pennsylvania from Colombia and Rico was born in Lancaster. Her family moved back to Colombia for a while but eventually returned to the U.S. Rico finished high school in Pennsylvania and later graduated from Penn State University (University Park, PA) in 2005 with a BSME.
As a student Rico noticed that a lot of tech jobs were being outsourced. She talked with friends who had graduated and entered the workforce. One of them suggested she consider sales and told her to look at Johnson Controls Inc (Milwaukee, WI). She sent along her resume and was hired as a sales engineer, working at the company’s Hasbrouck Heights, NJ location.
At Johnson Controls, Rico has to build relationships with other engineers, contractors and construction workers. She works specifically on heating and ventilation control systems. “You need a technical background for this job,” she says. Many of her sales involve retrofitting HVAC systems, and she collaborates with the engineers to come up with designs that best accommodate specific spaces.
Rico feels that moving around so much as a child has enabled her to adapt well to new situations and deal with all types of people. She also knows what it’s like to stand out in a crowd. “I was used to being the only Hispanic in school and one of the only women in my college classes,” she says.
Rico says she is happy to have found a career in ME that fits with her interests. She recommends that students speak often with their advisors to make sure they are staying on the right path, and also take advantage of campus career centers.
Veronica Molina: growing as a Raytheon senior quality engineer
Veronica Molina knew that graduation and a career would change her life and might take her away from her family, but she was ready for it. “In the Latin culture young adults often live at home during college and after,” she says. “But I’ve learned that it’s okay to move out of your comfort zone.” Leaving that comfort zone meant saying goodbye to the South Texas home where she grew up.
Molina attended the University of Texas Pan America (Edinburg, TX), where she graduated with a BSME in 2000. When she started school she knew she liked science and math, but she wasn’t sure how she could incorporate those interests into a job. She took a few mechanical engineering classes and discovered she enjoyed them. Her internships showed her how to apply what she learned in the classroom to real-life experiences.
Molina realized that she had to work a little harder than her classmates to be accepted, both in the classroom and during the job hunt. “A young female engineer always needs the drive to prove herself. You are in a room surrounded by men who aren’t used to having young women as peers.” She joined SWE, SHPE and ASME and attended various career fairs. “Through those groups I learned the best way to hunt for a job.”
When she thought it was time to look for a job, she went to career fairs. One of the companies Molina gave her resume to was Raytheon (Waltham, MA). “The company reviewed my resume and signed me up for a job interview,” she says. “I had a job offer by the time I graduated.” The job was at the company’s McKinney, TX location.
Her job as a senior quality engineer gives her plenty of opportunities to use her college skills. She’s also had a chance to explain the engineering profession to young people. On Latina Day at her alma mater’s career fair, Molina talks to high-school females about engineering. “The girls see young engineers who look like them and grew up in the same environment,” she says.
She knows how important role models are. As a college student she got to know the first Latina ME PhD candidate in Texas. “She was someone I looked up to.”
At Raytheon she is a member of the Women’s Leadership Young Engineers in Science Network, which promotes math and science. She also recruits new employees. When she’s not mentoring or recruiting, Molina supports an advanced infrared targeting system for the Navy. “I always have a chance to learn new things in my job. I’ve been able to change roles and programs several times. Raytheon gives young engineers the opportunity to grow. You can really challenge yourself here if you want to.”
Northrop Grumman’s Giselle Soto is in targeting surveillance
Giselle Soto’s family moved from Puerto Rico to Chicago when she was ten years old. “My parents wanted to give us better opportunities,” she says. One of those opportunities was a good education. Soto’s parents are teachers and understood the importance of learning and applying knowledge.
From the time she was a little girl Soto was fascinated with the way things worked. “I was always taking things apart. I liked creating things too.” When it came time to think of college and careers, ME seemed to be the right fit for her.
“You can do almost anything in ME,” she says. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do when I started school, so ME was a good choice for me.”
As a student Soto made sure she had some real-world experience on her resume. She did a co-op where she worked with military aircraft. The co-op showed her that she liked the aerospace applications of ME, so when it came time to find a job she decided to look at companies with an aerospace focus. Through networking she met someone from Northrop Grumman (Los Angeles, CA), who directed her to a recruiter there.
“It’s a lot easier looking for a job when you have experience,” she says. “But you still have to get out there, stand out from the crowd and sell your skills.
“Do your homework on companies and then tailor your resume to fit the company’s needs,” she advises. “The more you are out there, the easier it gets to find a job.”
Northrop Grumman hired Soto as a mechanical process engineer after she graduated from Northern Illinois University (DeKalb, IL) with a BSME in 2004. Her work involves targeting surveillance using a thermal imaging sensor to detect infrared energy emitted by objects. “The heat signature that’s emitted allows pilots to successfully identify and hit moving targets day and night,” she says.
Soto notes that her mechanical background comes in handy at home as well as on the job. “My husband isn’t mechanical at all,” she says. “I’m the one who uses the power tools!”
Marissa Suarez supports attractions at Disney World
Her family’s desire to live in a warm climate indirectly led to Marissa Suarez’s career at the Walt Disney Corporation (Orlando, FL). “I was born in Ponce, PR because it was too cold in New York. Then I was raised in Miami because it was still too cold in New York,” laughs Suarez, whose mother is from Puerto Rico and whose father is from the Dominican Republic.
She stayed in Florida to attend the University of Central Florida (Orlando, FL), where she graduated with a BSME in 2000. Majoring in ME was a natural choice that stemmed from a long-time hobby.
“I used to fix cars with my dad and uncle. Because of that I got interested in how they worked and how they’re built,” she says. “Then I found out that mechanical engineers help design and build cars. That’s how I got hooked.”
Suarez isn’t designing cars for a living, but she does have a job that millions of Disney World fans appreciate. As a senior mechanical designer Suarez supports the engineering efforts that sustain and enhance the park’s most popular rides and attractions.
“My job is varied,” she explains, “It can involve anything from enhancing animatronics and controls on Pirates of the Caribbean to designing a completely new ride vehicle for It’s a Small World.”
She found her job thanks to an internship and good networking skills. A posting for an internship at Ride & Show Engineering (Orlando, FL) led to a summer as a ride tester at Disney. She ultimately took another job at graduation, but kept up with her contacts at Ride & Show. When an opening became available she was able to turn her internship experience into a career as a Disney “cast member,” which is the term Disney uses for all its employees.
Suarez tells college students, “The college atmosphere is very different from the real world of engineering. Experience is key. Internship opportunities will give you a better understanding of how engineering principles are used in everyday life.”
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