How technology influenced my career choice.

[15CorbettEH]

This post is about how technology has influenced my future career plans and academic goals.


Technology in general has increasingly become part of my everyday life. I am a technology enthusiast and enjoy exploring new forms of technology. In high school I am actively involved in a program where young minds are used to solve simple everyday problems. Recently I discovered the VEX Robotics program for high school students. This program gives beginning engineers, like myself, hands on experience in areas of mechanical, electrical, and computer engineering. I currently attend Handley High School and will be graduating in the Spring of 2015. After graduation I plan on pursuing an education in electrical and mechanical engineering. I believe that my career choice will enable me to not only enjoy advancements in technology, but also give myself the ability to provide others a better understanding about how technology can benefit their daily lives.

While pursuing my high school education, I have always welcomed helpful criticism to improve my leadership capabilities . High school has given me the ability to push myself to meet higher goals. I have maintained a 3.97 gpa while taking honors and advanced placement courses in areas such as math and science. These courses have given me the opportunity to explore areas of math and science that lower leveled courses may not be capable of. Other than school work, I also participate in extracurricular activities including our high school math team, robotics club, and academic team. These courses and activities have influenced my academic and career plans by allowing me to discover my enjoyment of engineering.

The extracurricular activities that I have participated in have allowed me develop good leadership skills and an ability to withstand stressful situations when facing challenges. This year’s robotics club faced many challenges; one being a lack of funding and participants. Our team’s task was to build a robot to compete in a vex robotics competition. However we lacked the knowledge and skills needed to accomplish this goal. Our team lost many members because of the lack of initiative to develop these skills. However, I took the challenge despite the fact the competition date was in two months. I began researching the internet for tips and plans of how to build and program the robot. While researching I found examples of how this VEX program involved many aspects of mechanical and electrical engineering. After we completed the robot with the research I had gathered, I decided that pursuing a career in engineering was what I would enjoy the most.

I believe achieving a career in engineering will give me the opportunity to better understand technology as we use it today and its future uses. I have enjoyed exploring technology and using that technology to gain a better understanding of what career choice I am interested in. My experience in the VEX program has allowed me to set myself a goal of becoming a mechanical and electrical engineer in order to help others in their everyday lives with advancements in technology, and above all to make our society and world a better place in which to live.


Thanks for taking the time to read my post, if anyone has had similar experiences please share them.

Below is a picture of the completed robot.

[jboggs]

Congratulations sir! You appear to be a young man with a bright and exciting future. Keep learning, keep challenging yourself, and never give up. Welcome to the first phases of a solid engineering career.

For what it's worth I've been involved in the development and growth of our local high school robotics teams for about three years now as a team mentor, county-wide support committee member, and regional competition inspector. Proud to say all ten High Schools in our county fielded robotics teams this year, and one went to the nationals in St. Louis.

Our program is associated with the FIRST organization. I'm sure you're familiar with them. I am aware of VEX but have never been involved in any of their competitions.

Sorry to hear about the lack of participation. Don't let that hold you back though. In my experience the key is to find a teacher (or mentor) that "gets it", one that's willing to participate and promote the program strongly. Enthusiasm is infectious. In that regard, have you checked out the FIRST program in detail? (www.usfirst.org) They seem to have a LOT of tools just for that purpose.

Handley High School. Where?

[15CorbettEH]

Thanks for the encouragement, and I have heard about the FIRST program but my school does not offer it.
Handley High School in Roanoke Alabama, it's about 45 minutes North of Auburn.

[jboggs]

One more thing - thank you SO MUCH for realizing that professional communications and texting are two different things! That ONE feature of your written communication will set you above 90% of your peers. Most experienced engineers will automatically discount the credibility of anyone who neglects to use capitalization, punctuation, grammar, sentence structure, etc.

From the FIRST website, here are some teams in your area. You can contact them for information on how to start one in your area.

Team Number 3139 - "Omega"
Oxford, AL 36203


Team Number 3581 - "Sumdroids"
Mobis & Troup High School
Lagrange, GA 30241

Team Number 4323 - "BGCircuit Breakers"
Boys and Girls Clubs of the Chattahoochee Valley
Columbus, GA 31904 USA

[lukefinch]

It's really nice to read the 15CorbettEH post how have shared so much about the electric influenced and career. Actually I don't have any profession study of this field but I love to play with technologies that's why I have great interest in this field. I'm doing work to make an Electric Testing System for the electric and electronic machine. I got many help from my friends and my forum friends who's are professional of this field. I'll must share when I complete it.

[15CorbettEH]

lukefinch that's great that you enjoy technology. Since you have an interest in the field of electronics maybe you should look into getting a career in a technological field. You may find that it's even more fun after you have gotten a degree in technology.

[Sheppie]

Congratulations Corbett and keep up the good work. You're a brilliant example of what can persistence, hope and skill do. You had a dream you decided to follow and voila! Here you are. Your robot looks very cool and it's also obvious how much work you put into it. Hats off. Fantastic job. Keep it up. You're a live proof that having dreams is so fulfilling!

[desaikiran685]

Thanks for sharing this and let us motivate towards career choice

[jessemaguire]

Very motivating and all the best.

[petronextinternational]

Smart organizations have been increasingly using technology to improve employee retention, enhance talent management and raise levels of engagement. For example, self-assessment tools are the cornerstone of career development programs, which allow employees to gauge their interests, personalities, values, skills in order to help them reach their goals and dreams.

[lucasaiden88]

Technology has imparted rapid change and development in every field from manufacturing to construction and some academic programs.

[Cake of Doom]

Technology can be exchanged for goods and/or money! (<-spam post)

I'm glad you've found a happy place in this wide industry! If you carry on with this much enthusiasm then I'm expecting to you to come back with big things! Keep learning, keep evolving and, above all, keep enjoying it.

[andersonwil90]

Congrats that's a nice thing to hear your parents must be so very proud it's really rare now a days to discover what you want in such a young age, just keep what you'll doing keep learning and it will be fruitful.

[bob_moore]

Wow, well I do have something to share, I majored in system engineering and for a while I was working as a customer service agent, then a salesman and after moving to Taiwan I started working in a Marketing Agency, eventually I found myself working as a content creator for an electronics manufacturing company, while I'm not an electronics engineer and during my youth never really cared much about electronics, I've found the experience of somehow working in the electronics industry highly rewarding and very interesting, if I could go back in time I think I would tell myself, study electronic engineering, when I see my coworkers working on new projects it definitely makes me say wow, maybe I should go back to school and become an EE, as part of my work ,I do a lot of research on electronics and whenever I read through it I feel so happy, technology has also influenced my future career plans.

[kolerville]

It’s good that you have decided on your future profession and I think that you are crazy to let technology into your life. I made the same choice and my flair did not fail me