Why Did I Become an Engineer?

By Torey Salazar, KSC, FL

First off, my dad was an engineer and I’ve got to admit I thought that meant my dad drove a train for much of my early childhood. Even when I finally found out what an engineer really was, I still had no interest. At that age, I wanted to be Nancy Drew and I read every detective book I could get my hands on. I have always been fascinated by mysteries and the process that is involved in solving them. It wasn’t until I got to high school and learned more about science and math that I started thinking about other career options. So what is a budding detective supposed to do when she finds out that she really likes math and science? Become a failure analyst! But first, I would have to be introduced to the career field in college.

I went into college knowing that I wanted to be a Materials Engineer because I had previously participated in summer programs. In these programs, I was given the opportunity to shadow graduate students and learn about the scanning electron microscope, or SEM, which was the coolest thing I had ever seen. I decided that if a Materials Engineer gets to use this every day, then that is what I wanted to be. If you want to learn more about scanning electron microscopy, you can check out the wiki page here and use a Virtual SEM here. The Virtual SEM is a NASA-funded project that was developed by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. With the Virtual SEM, you can see how different objects look at high magnification, including lunar dust, Shuttle tile, or even a gecko foot!

I started looking for internships after my second year of college to help me decide what to do with my future degree in Materials Engineering. I applied to the NASA Undergraduate Summer Research Program (USRP) and was selected to work in the Materials Failure Analysis Laboratory at the Kennedy Space Center. If you want to learn more about this program, along with other opportunities for students at NASA, check it out here. During that summer, I got to participate in investigations to determine why some of the parts that are used for the Space Shuttle, International Space Station, or Expendable Launch Vehicles fail. I learned that the role of a failure analyst is very similar to that of a detective because every failure is a mystery that needs to be solved. I used the same skills that I had learned while reading all of those detective books when I was younger, in addition to the Materials Engineering knowledge that I had learned in college. That summer taught me that you can combine very different interests in your life to create a career that is perfectly suited for you.