Faculty support and internships construct student’s future
KALAMAZOO, Mich.—Erin Pietruszka took a leap of faith when she enrolled in Western Michigan’s University’s civil and construction engineering program. While many of her friends decided on their engineering programs during their second year of college, Pietruszka realized she was already in the right program for her.
“The processes made sense to me, and I enjoyed unique open-ended answers and not just one correct answer and that is why I am excited to join the structural field for my job out of college,” she says. Pietruszka also credits WMU professors, Dr. Decker Hains, chair of the Department of Management, and Dr. Yufeng Hu, master faculty specialist of civil and construction engineering, for helping solidify that civil engineering was the right major.
“Dr. Hains has impacted my academic and professional career in so many ways,” she says. “He gives me great advice to this day when I see him … he showed us what it truly meant to love one’s job and to enjoy teaching.” And it was Hu’s courses, Structural Analysis and Introduction to Structural Design, that helped her realize she wanted to become a civil engineer designer and focus on structural engineering in the future.
With her major chosen, Pietruszka has taken on two internships during her time at Western. She worked as surveyor on construction sites and as an AutoCAD analyst with PEA Group in Brighton, Mich., and most recently as a structural engineer intern with Commonwealth Associates in Jackson, Mich. From her internship experiences, Pietruszka was able to tie in what she was learning in the classroom with what she was seeing out in the field.
“In my structural engineering internship, I looked at shear strength capacity connection joints on transmission poles. The following semester, I was taught in-depth how to actually calculate that shear strength capacity in connection joints,” says Pietruszka. “It is super rewarding to see that my education is getting me prepared for real world scenarios and projects.”
In addition to her educational experiences in and out of the classroom, Pietruszka found a community a support at WMU.
“One thing that I did not expect to happen, was to make connections that were not just in the civil engineering program,” she said. “I have a ton of friends in mechanical, electrical, industrial, manufacturing and aerospace engineering that all helped me throughout my college education.”
As for what’s next, Pietruszka has already successfully passed the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam and is looking forward to continuing her journey for becoming a professional engineer (PE) and earning her seal stamp. She plans to stay in the field of structural engineering and pursue the structural PE exam in the next four years.
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