That Thing I Did For A Year

This week we have a live episode for you, recorded in the Pit, speaking to Shivani Nathoo from the Engineering Science Energy option!

This week we got to talk to the golden-voiced Paul Seufert about his year at ZS Associates and Sidewalk Toronto, that tied together physics, consulting, and urban design!

In this episode: choosing between physics and math, stats & finance; kaggle projects; fractional staffing and working on multiple projects at the same time; what it means to be a fast learner; getting really good at writing emails; the value of human intuition; urban design; learning that it's not all about the money; procrastination.

Sidewalk Toronto fellows report - https://sidewalktoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/SidewalksTOFellowsReport_Final_webcopy.pdf

Paul's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/seufertpaul/

Gift of Education - https://giftofeducation.ca/

Music by Shawn Lee

We kick off the new year with an episode we've wanted to do for some time, talking to Arkady Arkhangorodsky (our producer), a 4th year EngSci robotics student about his time at Google, Rapyuta Robotics, and Shopify, that took him all around the world!

In this week's episode we chatted with Sarah Chang, our first ChemEng student! She spent her PEY at Shawcor in Toronto; hear her talk about pipelines, lifting giant jugs of water, and becoming a beer connoisseur :)

Notes

0:41 - Ending up in chemical engineering, growing up in a bunch of different countries, dealing with international cultures

3:20 - Some extracurricular involvements, Skule orchestra, EWB

9:01 - Background on Shawcor, working on pipeline coatings

10:30 - Being among the only women on her team

27:10 - Life outside of work, rock climbing , muay thai, beer

39:00 - Going back to 4th year

Links

UConnect: https://uoftengineeringconnect.ca

Music by Shawn Lee

This week's episode features Sneha Adhikari, a civil engineering student who got to work on an issue close to home, on the King Street pilot with the City of Toronto!

Notes
0:46 - Working in Toronto, going towards civil engineering from originally wanting to do life sciences; what they might have in common

7:59 - Civil engineering as a social field

11:45 - Applying to PEY; putting non-engineering things in her portfolio

15:30 - 2 crappy interviews that were good learning experiences

17:40 - Work on pedestrian projects, more on the King St. Pilot

26:45 - Most fun day at work, getting roasted by her teammates

36:20 - Salad club

38:35 - Transportation planning

40:42 - Bringing the urban planning perspective from Toronto to Nepal and back

44:45 - Being on the grad school train

49:00 - Advice

Links

• King Street Pilot: https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/planning-development/planning-studies-initiatives/king-street-pilot/
• Jane Jacobs: http://janeswalk.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Jane_Jacobs_One_Pager_1.pdf
• Tuk-tuks: https://c1.staticflickr.com/6/5734/30997492635_dbf0ab2a56_b.jpg

Music by Shawn Lee

This week we spoke to Raymond Lam from Mechanical Engineering about his work at Baylis Medical where he worked on developing products used in heart surgeries!

Notes

0:19 - How he ended up choosing mechanical engineering; taking shop class in high school and doing the George Brown machining workshop

4:09 - Why he was looking to do 16 months instead of for, some of the things he applied for and why he ended up going with Baylis

7:30 - What Baylis does, minimally invasive surgery

17:45 - Dealing with a quickly expanding team, getting to know people around on other teams and how the company culture facilitated that

29:02 - Getting hired for knowledge that you haven't studied in school

31:05 - Changes people have pointed out to him since doing PEY

38:45 - Contact information

Music by Shawn Lee

This is an extra special episode, from a panel that we did for the 7th Conference on the Leader-Engineer, put on by Troost ILead. Ilya handed over the interviewing reins to Cindy Rottman, Associate Director of Research at ILead. We were joined by Deborah Raji (our friend from episode 3!) and Milan Malkjovic, a former engineering student, to talk about our own PEY experiences to an audience of students, engineers, and faculty members!

More about ILead: https://ilead.engineering.utoronto.ca

Music by Shawn Lee

In this week's episode, hear the person Ilya declared "the coolest person I know": Jenn Dixon (MSE 1T8 + PEY) about her time at Synaptive and also about her motorcycle.

Notes

0:20 - Coming from an international school in Oman to deciding to study in Canada

4:58 - Finishing 3rd year feeling very burnt out

5:44 - Her extremely strategic approach to applying, choosing between "traditional MSE stuff" and forensic engineering

9:28 - Interview process at Synaptive, how she stood out with enthusiasm

12:37 - Transitioning into working with just 2 days of rest after her last exam

17:04 - Not having the specific "tribal knowledge" of the field, value of 1:1s with coworkers

22:53 - Things that made the year hectic

29:09 - Rediscovering things about herself, visiting her parents for the first time in several years

31:18 - Questioning the notion that people are closest friends with one another while they are in school

34:55 - Differences in looking for work as an international student, a whole lot more paperwork

37:40 - Motorcycle!!!! Motorcycle!!!

43:27 - Coming back to school, starting to see school more as a means to an end

44:34 - Thinking of yourself as an RPG character with different sliders, "having other sliders"

This week's episode we have Oishe Farhan (ECE) sharing his experience combining his interests in neurotechnology and mindfulness in a year working at InteraXon, creators of the Muse brainwave sensing headband.

Notes

0:21 - Going to high school at TOPS and how he ended up studying ECE, discovering neurotechnology through first years at UofT and starting a club for it!

7:40 - Deepening involvement in the NeuroTech club through second and third year, doing somewhat related work Montreal

9:00 - The start of the story of his PEY, not originally planning to do anything for more than just the summer

12:30 - Meeting the Muse CTO at a talk and finding a job just before he would've gone back to school; what Muse is

18:35 - Research buzz around meditation coinciding with working on it

27:14 - His personal experience getting more into meditation, comparing it to Sherlock Holmes investigation

33:01 - Day-to-day type of work, some of the open ended demo projects he got to make, including one that featured at the G7!!

41:05 - New perspectives, related to pacing, on coming back to school, different courses he's taking now

52:39 - The urge to travel, especially during university, and how meditation satisfies that for him

Links

Wait But Why article about Neuralink

This week's episode features Alison Chow, an industrial engineering student who got to work as a product manager at Microsoft twice, as a developer at NVIDIA, and as a business intelligence engineer at a startup called Stylelounge in Hamburg! She had some interesting stories to share from career fairs, travels, and highly varied internships.

Notes

1:15 - Deciding to study engineering (science) because she was good at math and physics in high school, switching to industrial engineering

3:03 - Getting deep into YNCN and the benefits of doing heavy job hunting in first year

5:56 - What product managers at Microsoft do

7:34 - Being sheltered in the first internship, working on a project to grow an app ecosystem

11:18 - Things affecting the decision to do PEY: money, getting a wider set of experiences, trying a "technical" role

14:00 - Getting jobs (Microsoft, NVIDIA) from career fairs, having had experience before that working with her mom at trade fairs

16:44 - Some lowlights from grinding at career fairs

24:57 - Working at Stylelounge, a startup in Hamburg, doing business development; getting a visa herself!

31:21 - A day in the life doing business intelligence - "improving decision making through data"

36:02 - Adjusting to life in a place where she knew NOBODY

39:11 - Being more trusted the third time around at Microsoft and getting more responsibility - 3 simultaneous projects!

41:09 - Traveling with people you've just met

42:58 - Starting to miss school after a long time away

46:28 - Advice, value of early work experiences (e.g. before 1st year)

Music by Shawn Lee