VIDEO: How a term at The Castle can help fortify your resume

The enrollment deadline for this year's summer Global Project Management program at The Castle is coming up on April 1, 2018. Learn more here.

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  I think that all the really interesting

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  things in engineering are happening at

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  the intersection of disciplines. They're not

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  happening where someone has been studying

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  the physics of water for their entire career.

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  It's where you bring that person in with

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  someone who has been studying sensors,

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  for example, or someone who understands

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  social implications of water technologies.

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  So, where those fields intersect is where real

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  innovation is happening and I wasn't exposed to

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  those other fields until I was at The Castle

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  studying things in the areas of geography or english

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  where I learned that I could see these things from

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  different perspectives and got really curious about

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  what would be some powerful other perspectives I

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  could develop.

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  And, that's made me a much better engineer.

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  Employers do like the fact that you have that

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  extra kind of oomph to your degree because you

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  do have that experience abroad.

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  In an engineering role, yes your technical skills

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  are important, but there's a lot more to a job

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  than just engineering technical skills.

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  For example, you're always going to be in a team,

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  communicating. You're always going to be doing those

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  social skills as well.

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  And I feel that having that management program:

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  being able to manage a team, being able to manage

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  a project, being able to manage a budget, those variety

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  of things would all be very beneficial in any job

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  really.

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  Immediately after getting back from the program,

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  I enrolled as a project manager for the Queen's

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  Experimental Sustainability Team.

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  And I was managing a project for a design

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  challenge that I did in waste water engineering.

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  So, I was able to apply all the skills we learned in

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  that course immediately. And from there

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  I went on to become the head of the design team

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  program at Queen's, the Director of Design for the

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  Engineering Society and continued to use those

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  project management skills every day to keep myself

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  organized as I did very complex projects in a variety of

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  different areas.

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  For example, I was co-chair of CIRQUE

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  which is the conference for engineering students

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  to kind of show them the versatility of their degree.

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  I was in charge of managing the budget, the team, and

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  just the entire project in general. So, that had

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  a lot of different applications and I learned a lot

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  about that in the specific Project Management Course

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  that we took at The Castle, so I could really apply all

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  those skills that I learned to actual application.

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  When we're doing design, we need to be aware

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  of the fact that we're building upon designs that

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  have been done for hundreds of years.

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  We are working in complex social and environmental

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  environments. And so, the work that we did,

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  especially studying the history of London as a city,

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  and how some of the technologies within the city of

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  London, such as the border wall around the city, have influenced

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  evolution, was really important.

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  It helped me understand as well how

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  the decisions I make an engineer can

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  change the future of a lot of people's lives.