Today, I spent the day exclusively shadowing my main mentor Ms. Heather Stone. I started the day off checking the details of some of the drawings — checking that the gages were correct for each part and component. Ms. Stone was working on placing a label on her product. She was fiddling with different colors, sizes, and placements. As a quick break, Ms. Stone took me into the warehouse area, where we met Matthew and Mr. Wilson walking back to the office. They made a U-turn to show us what they had been looking at — the old engineering drawings from the company records. It was very interesting to look through the drawings that had been made by hand — especially after working on the CAD software and creating computerized images. After looking around, Ms. Stone took me back to the office and brought me with her into a phone meeting. Their meeting was very interesting and enlightening. I must admit that I didn’t understand a lot of it — due to the advanced lingo and professional discussions– but I was able to see a surprising side of engineering. This was the first of a handful of different phone meetings Ms. Stone had throughout the day, and I was able to see the more collaborative and business-y side of engineering. I was once again impressed by the wide range of different skills and responsibilities that engineers have. For example, Ms. Stone also had to book a flight to Tennessee for the next week — I learned that she travels fairly often (every few months) for her job. At the end of the day, I helped Ms. Stone edit and fix typos from the drawings that we had marked earlier in the day. She also worked on completing tasks that came up in her meetings — updating information on costs and materials, talking with people in different departments/levels, completing and sending out different visuals for her products. Shadowing Ms. Stone, I was able to better understand the daily life of an engineer. I am incredibly grateful that Ms. Stone let me follow her and listen in to her meetings, explaining terms and discussions that I didn’t understand. Thank you, Ms. Stone!
Additionally, throughout the day I was very fortunate to receive some cool gifts and goodies. Mr. Thompson dropped by to give me the completely finished 3D print and metal carving of the flanged nut we created yesterday. Thank you again, Mr. Thompson! I also received my own craftsman caliper. I was thrilled, being able to check the real measurements of the flanged nut models (they were pretty exact!). I also received a Husky cap from Ms. Yessie Ortiz, who is in charge of the mail and company store — thank you so much! It was a very rewarding day in many ways. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to see the everyday routine of an engineer with Ms. Stone and being able to feel like a real engineer with my own caliper. Once again, I am very grateful for these opportunities given to me by Apex Tool Group and their kind employees.
