For many students, selecting a major is an intimidating proposition. What if I end up disliking what I chose? Will I be doomed to a career in a field I can’t stand or, worse, one that is increasingly obsolete? Such questions are not uncommon and even selecting a highly-marketable major like engineering doesn’t fully resolve the quandary. After all, there are numerous disciplines within the broad field of engineering and even more particularized specializations within each discipline. Should I investigate aerospace applications for engineering or try my hand at new network solutions? It can be overwhelming.

How can students evaluate their numerous options in a way that takes into account their interests, life experiences and educational opportunities? Members of the faculty in the UK College of Engineering have related the various ways in which they discovered what they wanted to immerse themselves in for the rest of their professional lives. We have organized their reflections into five categories.

BE CURIOUS: David Puleo, Director, Center for Biomedical Engineering

For most of his youth, David Puleo wanted to be a surgeon; however, upon entering high school, he realized his strong interest in medicine was matched by an equal fascination with technology and engineering concepts. One day, while reading, he came across the words “biomedical engineering.” Intrigued, he began to conduct research and discovered an organization called the Biomedical Engineering Society. He wrote them, asking, “What is biomedical engineering and where can I study it?” After examining the literature they sent him, Dr. Puleo knew the career path he wanted to take. “Biomedical engineering was the marriage of the medical and the technical that I had wanted,” he says. “And it still offered the potential to go to medical school if I ever desired to pursue it.”

Following your curiosity can lead you into new fields and communities you might not have known existed. With the wealth of information available through internet research, it has never been easier to discover previously unknown career opportunities.

REFLECT ON YOUR BACKGROUND: Nikiforos Stamatiadis, Professor of Civil Engineering

Growing up in Greece, Nikiforos Stamatiadis was fascinated by public transportation. The ability to accommodate large groups of people within a networked infrastructure drew him to study transportation engineering. During his undergraduate studies in Greece, he helped develop efficient bus routes and systems. Upon beginning a graduate program in the United States, he quickly discovered that, broadly speaking, the U.S. doesn’t rely on public transportation. As a result, he shifted his attention to other aspects of transportation engineering, such as driver licensing, driver education and highway safety; those issues, like public transportation, affect thousands of people every day. “At the end of the day, if I design a safe highway that serves the needs of the community, accommodates mobility concerns and is conscientious of our impact upon the environment, I consider that time spent very rewarding.”

When connecting your experience to possible career options, don’t overlook your childhood, adolescence, geographical location, hobbies, etc. They may provide clues as to what subjects naturally keep you interested.

ACCUMULATE EXPERIENCES: Christine Trinkle, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Christine Trinkle obtained B.S. and M.S. degrees in mechanical engineering right here at UK, but it wasn’t until she was pursuing her Ph.D at Cal-Berkeley that she began to see the shape of her future research. She recalls, “When I went to Berkeley, my interest wasn’t on the biological side, but one day I decided to grab some coffee and head to a talk with some friends. It was on the interface between the mechanical engineering side and the needs in the medical, pharmaceutical and biological areas. I remember sitting in this talk and thinking, ‘This is amazing! This is such an interesting and unique part of mechanical engineering that I had never seen before and had never guessed was there.’”

Attending lectures, visiting trade shows and taking advantage of student travel opportunities to annual conferences is a great way to accumulate experiences, some of which will influence your course of study and future vocational choices.

SEEK OUT PROFESSORS WHO LOVE THEIR WORK: Braden Lusk, Assistant Professor of Mining Engineering

Like most young boys, Braden Lusk enjoyed setting off fireworks and creating small explosions, but never planned on becoming a professional blaster until he sat in professor Paul Worsey’s blasting seminar while an undergraduate student at Missouri-Rolla (now Missouri S&T). Lusk recalls: “Paul came in and played a video called ‘Dance of the Detonators.’ It was nothing but mine blasts set to classical music. The whole time, he was in the back of the room, laughing like he had never seen it before, and I thought, ‘Man, this is crazy…I’ve got to do this!’” As a result, Lusk began taking as many of Dr. Worsey’s classes as he could.

Most professors relish the chance to work with students on research—especially undergraduate students. Take advantage of office hours and other opportunities to connect with professors. The satisfaction they find in their research may become infectious.

SEIZE OPPORTUNITIES: Thomas Novak, Alliance Coal Chair Professor of Mining Engineering

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, Tom Novak was recruited by the U.S. Bureau of Mines in Pittsburgh, where he first began to research mine safety. While with the Bureau, an unforeseen opening emerged. “The Bureau of Mines offered a program where I could earn a graduate degree while working for them. I already had an electrical engineering background, so I got a master’s degree in mining engineering from the University of Pittsburgh,” he recalls. After that, the educational opportunities continued to present themselves. “Once I had my master’s degree, Penn State contacted me about being an instructor of their mining technology courses. In return, I got time off to pursue my Ph.D. coursework and research. I jumped at that chance.”

Novak chuckles when he thinks about his diverse professional experience. “There’s really no such thing as long-range planning,” he says. “If, when I was in high school, you would have told me I would be a university professor for over 30 years, I would have said you were nuts! But I took advantage of opportunities when they were there.”

“Determining that abstinence is the best policy regarding children and ATVs was merely a hypothesis; there was no scientific evidence to support their judgment,” he recalls. “I felt like someone needed to take a more scientific approach to the question of whether or not children are too small to ride ATVs.”

But how does one test such a hypothesis? What kinds of experiments have the potential to produce relevant data, yet prevent children from becoming injured during testing? Dr. Bernard knew he would need help.

So he looked for an engineer.

“The way engineers look at the world is crucial for tackling a question like this. If you want to go beyond, ‘Oh, there’s another group of injured children, so children should never ride these things,’ then you need engineers,” he says. “I knew about the Wenner-Gren biomedical research facility, but didn’t know exactly what they did. So I sent an email asking if anyone could help me test the hypothesis. A few days later, I got a response from David Pienkowski.”

David Pienkowski has been a faculty member in the Center for Biomedical Engineering at UK since 1991. Specializing in bone research and osteoporosis, he was intrigued by Dr. Bernard’s request.

“I knew nothing about ATVs prior to talking with Andrew regarding the means to test this hypothesis,” he acknowledges, “but with some work, and help from Blue Grass Motor Sports, nurses and many others, we devised a research strategy.”

What have they discovered?

“We are in the process of developing a simple recipe for fitting children onto ATVs. In terms of size, there are two different sizes of ATVs, one aimed toward youth and one for adults,” Pienkowski explains. “There are differences in vehicle dimensions beyond the obvious; one such example is the brake lever on a youth ATV – it is the same as that on an adult ATV. That caused us to ask: how can a child reach a lever that is farther away than it would be for an adult and safely brake an ATV in time to avoid a collision?”

Dr. Bernard elaborates, “We believe we can supply information manufacturers can use for design changes, and that those design changes will lead to greater injury prevention.”

Another finding has to do with factors leading to ATVs tipping over, especially when children ride behind adults.

“ATV injuries come in all forms, but it is all too common for a driver to over-accelerate when going up a hill and tip the ATV. When that happens, the child suffers the weight of the vehicle and the adult,” describes Pienkowski. “We are studying the relationship between the angle at which the ATV can be ridden, the weight of the child and the position of the child relative to the rear axle and torque applied by the throttle input.”

“Given what we have learned from studying those relationships, we are surprised there aren’t more ATV accidents,” adds Dr. Bernard.

Both researchers agree that perhaps the most important lesson they have learned is that age is not a sufficient marker of who should ride an ATV.

“We need to focus on size, not age,” says Pienkowski. “Kids can be the same age and yet differently proportioned. This is a guideline we would like to see manufacturers and retailers change for the safety of their customers.”

Through the peer-reviewed literature, public service announcements and conversations with ATV manufacturers and retailers, the two hope to disseminate the fruits of their research in ways that lead to safer practices and fewer ATV-related injuries and deaths.

“Kentucky is fourth in the nation in ATV deaths, behind California, Texas and Pennsylvania—even though our population is far less than those states; yet, we know that in spite of laws and public service announcements, adults will allow children to ride ATVs. We want to offer scientifically-based guidelines that will make such riding safer.”

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