Thomas Smith is a registered Professional Civil Engineer in the State of California and holds a BS in Structural Engineering from UC San Diego and a MS in Civil Engineering with emphasis in Structures from San Diego State University. He has gained a wide variety of experience since graduation from UCSD in 2009. He worked for 3 years at South Bay Foundry, a steel fabrication facility, creating shop drawings for various steel structures while attending grad school at SDSU. He then worked for 3 years as a Construction Manager and Project Manager at the City of San Diego, managing the design and construction of City-owned buildings. He currently works as a Project Engineer (Structural design) at GHD and has been there for 1.5 years. He is the PE Review co-chair for the ASCE YMF San Diego Section.
In this presentation, Thomas will discuss his experience transitioning from school life to working life within the Structural Engineering field. He will provide suggestions for how to land your first job and will describe his experience when he first started working in the profession. He will discuss some of the challenges that he has faced in his career and how he worked to overcome them. The importance of professional networking will be discussed as well as the impact and importance of obtaining professional licensure, both as a PE and as a SE. He will also provide some tips for studying and taking the FE/EIT and PE exams. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to discuss any questions or comments.
Lindsay Walton
lwalton@ucsd.edu