Episode Notes | Transcript | AskTheGuest
2 Engineering Professors from University of California Santa Barbara join us on our podcast to give us an Introduction to Engineering: Glenn Beltz, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the Associate Dean in the College of Engineering, and Kevin Plaxco, Professor of BioEngineering.
In this Podcast, the two Professors first tell us what Engineering is, and then take us through a brief history of Engineering, branches of engineering, emerging areas of research, the skills needed to study Engineering in College and the available opportunities when you graduate.
Hi-Fives from the Podcast are:
Episode Title: About Majors: What is Engineering? With Profs. Glenn Beltz & Kevin Plaxco of UC Santa Barbara.
Episode summary introduction: The goal of this series is to serve as a primer for High Schoolers about a Major, through our conversations with Faculty Experts in the various US Colleges and Universities.
We continue this series with Engineering, with UC Santa Barbara Professors - Glenn Beltz, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the Associate Dean in the College of Engineering, and Kevin Plaxco, Professor of BioEngineering.
In particular, we discuss the following with him:
Topics discussed in this episode:
Our Guests: Glenn Beltz, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the Associate Dean in the College of Engineering at the University of California Santa Barbara.
Kevin Plaxco, Professor, Departments of Chemistry & Biochemistry, BioMolecular Science and Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering at the University of California Santa Barbara.
Memorable Quote: “...that experience of a hands on independent research project is always going to kind of pay off I think.” Prof. Beltz.
Episode Transcript: Please visit Episode’s Transcript.
Suggestions for you: STEM Podcasts.
Calls-to-action:
Transcript of the episode’s audio.
<Start Snippet> Prof Plaxco 0:14
In engineering, if you do understand things, it's great. It's intellectually satisfying and it and if you understand the system you're working on, you're more likely to be able to improve it. But understanding things, and my friend Glenn may disagree on this. But understanding things is not the fundamental goal of engineering. funnnel goal is to make things that improve lives and help people.
That is Kevin Plaxco, Professor of BioEngineering at the University of California Santa Barbara.
Hello, I am your host, Venkat Raman.
Today’s episode is on Engineering, in our special podcast series on “College Majors” to serve as a Primer for High Schoolers.
Engineering is an applied science that has its origins in BC.
While we may marvel at the engineering behind The pyramids of Egypt as one of the seven wonders,
Engineering today is an integral part of society, propelling game changing advancements.
2 Engineering Professors from University of California Santa Barbara join us on our podcast to give us an Introduction to Engineering: Glenn Beltz, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the Associate Dean in the College of Engineering, and Kevin Plaxco, Professor of BioEngineering.
Venkat Raman 1:42
In this Podcast, the two Professors first tell us what Engineering is, and then take us through a brief history of Engineering, branches of engineering, emerging areas of research, the skills needed to study Engineering in College and the available opportunities when you graduate.
Before we jump into the podcast, here are the High-Fives, Five Highlights from the podcast:
[What is Engineering?]
Applying scientific principles to either do something useful, some useful function or to create something useful.
[Impact on Humanity]
And the perhaps the biggest of all, by some definitions is sanitation. It's probably hard to imagine anything other than sanitation having saved more lives.
[Interdisciplinary Programs]
Human Engineers has been millennia understanding design systems and the principles of design. And we use what we learned from that, to understand the design rules that evolution has worked with.
[R&D in Engineering]
The emergence of the LED and then the blue LED in particular and how it can be used to create you know, all colors of the spectrum and the Create a right kind of white light that you need for lighting. I think that's been hugely groundbreaking for society.
[Skills Needed]
You've got to have a good understanding for what societal needs are, and you've got to be able to communicate. So so just your your writing and verbal communications skills, I would argue need need to be strong.
Venkat Raman 3:38
These were the Hi5s, brought to you by College Matters. Alma Matters.
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Venkat Raman 3:49
Now, without further ado, here’s the podcast with Professors Glenn Beltz and Kevin Plaxco!
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Venkat Raman 3:57
First of all, just want to welcome Glenn and Kevin to the podcast. So today, we're going to be talking about engineering for high schoolers, at least with the idea of providing them a primer on what an engineering really is. And quite we could spend some time and talk about the various aspects of engineering. So Glenn, I thought maybe you could kick it off by you know, telling us what engineering is or how you how you see engineering,
I guess I would see it say is that it is applying scientific principles to either do something useful, some useful function or to create something useful. So decide to do something or to to create something, some machine or structure or otherwise that it's going to serve some useful purpose to society. But it's the idea of using scientific principles to To come up with all of those good things.
Venkat Raman 5:06
How do you think all this started? I mean, what might be the origins of engineering? I know it goes back way back in time. But
Sure, I mean, if you could go back to the BC times, and there's documented stories that clearly are engineering related or engineering, like I mean, there's lots of things you could read about, say, Archimedes, he's he's credited with one of these sayings get, give me a place to stand on and I'll move the earth. And so he's credited with coming up with various things that use levers to do useful things or to use raise rays from the sun to, to do other other certain things. But it, I'm sure it even goes further.
Kevin P 6:04
How far it goes back depends upon how finely define it, of course, pyramids are 5000 years old, I assure you, there was a lot of engineering that went into those.
Venkat Raman 6:15
What might be some broad impact that engineering has had on our lives on humanity. I mean, obviously, we can rattle off a whole bunch, but maybe Glenn, you could kick it off. And then Kevin, you could tell us more,
Oh, my, I'm sure I can only come up with things that are the tip of the iceberg. But things like transportation, just being people being able to move far away from from where they initially are. Communications, being able to communicate across the world, I think has certainly been a hugely important part of society, you hear stories about even even within the previous century, like when an important and event happened, like like Pearl Harbor, and you see stories about the telegram being received several hours later in Washington. And of course, now when something happens on the other side of the world, we pretty much know about it instantly. So I think communication is is another big, big example. But certainly transportation communication. Health,
Kevin P 7:29
Two of my favorites, you know, moving water around to, to, to improve farming, and the perhaps the biggest of all, by some definitions of sanitation, it's probably hard to imagine anything other than sanitation, having saved more lives, in sanitation is definitely an engineering effort moving moving wastes around.
Venkat Raman 7:53
How did Engineering get organized, right? I mean, so there's so many different applications. I mean, you just rattled off three or four here. But at some point, people started thinking about these in some organized fashion. Not sure when that happened, but all the different areas of Engineering, you know, started to emerge. So what might, what are the broad areas today? And how did that evolve? If we have an idea, to Glenn and then maybe again, Kevin,
Yeah, sure. I this, this is a topic that I think is just insanely complex. And it depends who you talk to. And you could go around to different universities, and you see that you could see it in how their Engineering colleges are organized, you could go to some institutions, and they will have the very traditional Engineering disciplines, they'll have a department of Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Electrical, Mechanical, but, but you'll go to other universities, and you'll see some different things. Maybe, either, they'll build, they'll more they'll divide things up finally, or maybe include some more modern things on there. But you'll you'll have departments of say Molecular Engineering or Aerospace Engineering, or Industrial Engineering. And, and so there's really just a continuum. And you know, you'll get into all these interdisciplinary things like yeah, I could just rattle off a few more like you'll you'll, you'll see. Oh, I don't know, Agricultural Engineering, or I think I might have already mentioned Biomedical Engineering. But but different different places tend to have different philosophies on how finally the the divide themselves up and organize themselves.
Venkat Raman 9:50
But do you think, do you think there's a basic construct here? Are there some fundamentals in engineering and all these other things or derivatives or do we think that all of them are sort of equally basic?
Glenn 10:06
I think there's, there's a certain body of key concepts that you're gonna have that are common to a whole bunch of different engineering disciplines. I mean, you're never gonna be studying physics and chemistry and math, the the absolute essential basics from within a whole bunch of those, those engineering disciplines.
Kevin P 10:31
The most fundamental thing is the way engineers think. engineers look at the world. And we haven't introduced ourselves yet. Glenn, Glenn is a practitioner of a more traditional area of engineering, mechanical engineering. I, myself am a bio engineer, which is perhaps the newest subject to the engineering umbrella. And the thing that links those together the most broadly is how we think about profits.
Venkat Raman 11:00
So how do you think Kevin that is different from say, a basic scientist versus an engineer,
I love, my training actually is as a basic scientist, I've only become an engineer in the last 10 or 15 years. And I always put it somewhat jocularly, but with a good grain of truth to it, I always put it this way. As a scientist, as a basic scientist, my goal was to understand things. And it's all that can be a little frustrating. We never know truly, if we understand something. There's a true aphorism in the sciences that there's no experiments can never prove a theory, they can only disprove them. So no matter how good your theory is, you don't know if you're going to wake up the next day and discover that someone's figured out an experiment that disproves it. Right? in concrete. In engineering, if you do understand things, it's great. It's intellectually satisfying, and it and if you understand the system you're working on, you're more likely to be able to improve it. But understanding things, and my friend Glenn may disagree on this. But understanding things is not the fundamental goal of engineering fun, the goal is to make things that improve lives and help people. It's a much more tangible and demonstrable goal. I mean, I know if I've succeeded in engineering, and in science, you're always wondering a little bit, you've actually succeeded. So I've enjoyed moving into engineering for that reason.
Venkat Raman 12:24
Now, that's a that's a great, great point. I mean, Glenn, what? Any, any thoughts on that?
Glenn 12:29
I mean, I don't disagree whatsoever.
Venkat Raman 12:35
You know, we talked a little bit about areas of engineering and the emerging cross disciplinary programs. Now, before we go any further, is there a reason why these cross disciplinary programs are emerging? Or is that something natural? Or is that because there was a need for it? I mean, I'm just trying to understand how did those come about? Say Bioengineering, for example?
Bioengineering is a is a bit of a special beast. And when we so far, we've been talking about the more traditional areas of engineering and even, and biology fits in them in one way. And that is a bio engineer, one of the things we bio engineers do is to try to engineer things out of biological materials, biological processes, building things that are inspired by biology biomimetic technologies that aren't quite biological themselves, but where we took a mechanism that evolution invented and applied to a human problem. Sure, but more I more so than I think is true. The other sub disciplines of engineering, and bioengineering, we have a very thriving effort that the literally flips it on its head, it says, like, human engineers, has spent millennia understanding design systems and the principles of design. And we use what we learned from that, to understand the design rules that evolution has worked with. So that's one thing I really like about bio and doing some discipline because it does absolutely flip traditional engineering on its head and say, Hey, let's let's let's look at what we've learned as engineers, and figure out this amazing system that has been handed to us on a platter life that we can say that we humans didn't design ourselves.
Venkat Raman 14:25
Sure. Now, what about some of the other ones like biomedical, Environmental Engineering,..
Kevin P 14:33
Biomedical engineering tends to be a more traditional branch of engineering in my own view, right that is that is engineers solving immediate medical problems using mechanical engineering or electrical engineering or any of the traditional fields of engineering. Whereas biological engineering is this idea of engineering things from biology, as I mentioned, from biological components, or engineering things that are inspired by biology that mimic how biologists but biomedical engineering specifically is a more traditional area of engineering, in my view.
Venkat Raman 15:12
Moving a little bit along, I thought we could spend a little time on sort of areas of research and development in engineering over the last few decades, and then we can talk about some emerging areas. So, you know, maybe we can split it into a little bit in the recent past and then looking ahead, you know, Glenn, you want to kick that off, and then...
I just randomly looking at some of the, the hot topics that are going on around me and what my colleagues are working on, for example, I think a big part of it is relates to using Opto electronics to do useful things and that's not only for things like displays, but but lighting, so just the emergence of the LED, and then the blue LED in particular and how it can be used to create you know, all colors of the spectrum and to create a right kind of white light that you need for lighting. I think that's been hugely groundbreaking for society. But that's that's been one of the critical emerging and hot areas that that's going on here at UCSB, but and elsewhere. Another area might be high performance, materials, materials that that can withstand high temperatures, other extreme environments, but also serve other useful functions like, wow, one big area is blast resistant panels. So you can imagine if you have a detonation in, in a luggage container, is there a way to design the luggage container that contain that instead of just exploding and causing all sorts of havoc around it? So And certainly, there are a lot of things going on in the biotech and medical device area, biomedical engineering, but I'm further away from my own discipline, so I'm not as qualified to talk about it.
Venkat Raman 17:25
Maybe Kevin, you know, I know that. You're doing a lot of work in bio engineering, biosensors. Tell us a little bit about that. what's hot, what's exciting, what's emerging.
What's exciting to me is that, you know, if you look around the biosphere, look at it. Look at all the plants and animals and microbes around around the Earth. They face so many daunting physical and chemical challenges. Evolution has adapted life to live such bizarre lifestyles and such broaden enormous range of conditions. We look at life from that perspective, it's obvious that some of the tricks evolution invented to solve those to meet those challenges clearly should be of utility design of human technologies. And, and I think we've just scratched we as engineers have just scratched the surface, then the potential of biological engineering is amazing. And we've really, really just barely scratched the surface. I myself, I like wide open fields. That's why I was attracted specifically to biological engineering.
Venkat Raman 18:34
So what are what are some specific things that you might call out in terms of adapting some of those evolutionary tricks, as you called them?
Kevin P 18:44
My own, in my own research, for example. Clinicians, for example, have wanted to measure all kinds of molecules in the body in real time monitor hormones to monitor fertility or other other health issues, monitoring drugs in the body to make sure that the right amount of drug is in you. Historically, we've not been able to do that it's the only molecule that we can the only two molecules we can measure in the body in real time or glucose, which diabetics do and that pulse oximetry on your finger. Okay, and there are there were no technologies for measuring drugs in the body in real time. Biology, in contrast, is really good at that you are full of receptors right now that are responding quantitatively to specific molecular cues in real time. So biology absolutely knows how to do that. We humans have had not. We said, well, how does biology solve that problem? And we dive we get my background is actually in biology, not engineering. And from that perspective, we dove deep into what the mechanisms are that evolutions used to solve that problem, and we were able to adapt them due to human needs. We using those ideas, we invented an analogous technology and technology that's directly analogous to how biology saw problem that is now the first ever platform technology that can measure molecules in the body in real time, we've used it to measure a dozen different drugs and metabolites already.
Venkat Raman 20:14
You know, this is fascinating and a high schooler listening to this, it's going to think, Okay, what do I need to sort of get into these areas? So maybe we can spend a little time on what kind of competencies and background to students need to develop, or build in high school? And maybe, Glenn, you can start this discussion on?
It certainly a bunch, I think the obvious part of the answer is the science basics. I mean, clearly, you're gonna need to be good at math, as well as the other science disciplines that are traditionally taught at the high school level, the physics, the chemistry and the biology.
Glenn 21:11
In terms of engineering, there's there's got to be softer skills, that that you've got to be strong at as well, you've got to have a good understanding for what societal needs are. And you've got to be able to communicate. So so just your your writing and verbal communications skills, I would argue need need to be strong.
Venkat Raman 21:36
Kevin, I'd love for you to sort of talk about the interdisciplinary aspect of this and how, you know, obviously, you're such a great case study, from chemistry to coming into engineering, but what would your sort of point of view be on this on the skill side? And then how does one develop this kind of cross disciplinary expertise, if you will?
Kevin P 21:59
That, yeah, that latter questions a good one, I wonder if I might be lying in bed thinking what a good answer to that is for the next several days. Obviously Glenn's right like engineering is is it's it's a it's a part of STEM, it requires skills in background in math and science and make as many of those classes as you can and learn to love them. We you can we can reinvent ourselves to the right? As you noted I'm a chemistry professor but my PhDs in biology. And then I'm in chemistry professor. And until recently, I was the Director for the Center for bioengineering here on our campus. I think the key thing was, is learning how to think critically, more than any other more than any specific bit of knowledge or skill set, I can pick up new knowledge.
Glenn 22:51
And the thinking critically part is something that you're going to get quite a bit of experience in your non STEM courses. So I think that's that's one reason why those are so important. Developing your, your critical thinking skills.
Someone who's trying to enter college, I mean, engineering, obviously, lots of fields, lots of areas. What's What's some, what kind of guidance could we give? Or could you give students as to what to pick? I mean, whether it's mechanical or electrical, or metallurgy, or
Kevin P 23:33
It's whatever, you know, being excited about something is, is such a is an unfair advantage, if you will, you know, going with your heart what interests you, what are you curious about what excites you?
Venkat Raman 23:45
So if you're basically saying passion comes first or excitement comes first?
Kevin P 23:50
I'll at least say that I've never seen a student really succeed without passion. At the very least.
Venkat Raman 23:59
Once they're in college, I mean, any any guidance on the four years that they spend during the undergrad? What are things they ought to be doing?
Glenn 24:08
Oh, that's a tough one. But as I as I think on that, students need to be good collaborators, they need to be able to work with other students and just developing those, those those kinds of skills early on, you know, don't do your work in a isolated vacuum. Talk about talk about your, your assignments and your projects with your fellow students. Certainly, and things like design courses, you're going to have to do that, because you're going to be working in teams you're going to be working with with other groups of students, but But I certainly am a strong proponent of working in in study groups, and sometimes that gets students in the trouble because perhaps they work a little too closely with each other and they turn in, in work that the professor might not view as, as being their their own. But not nonetheless, it's, it's still generally a good way to go about your studies.
Kevin P 25:16
To build on what Glenn has just said there, I'll give you some advice that I gave my kid who's now working on a PhD in computer science, speaking of engine, I said, Look, find find, find people who challenge you find people who are smarter than you will on some of the many axes along which intelligence lies, right, who will push you. Likewise, I took it, you know, go to the best school you can get into because it will challenge you and the people, the people you hang out with will will end up defining your educational experience.
Venkat Raman 25:47
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Venkat Raman 25:52
There's academics, of course, but what kind of stuff should they be doing in terms of research or in labs or other projects? I mean, what kind of things should they seek out and do?
Glenn 26:03
Well, I would say just that they seek it out to begin with.
Kevin P 26:06
Yes, exactly. Don't be shy.
Glenn 26:09
Yeah. A lot of students. Jones, not that they have to, to do well, but you're going to get so much more out of the experience. If you seek out those. Either. It could be one on one, research projects with with faculty members, or you could get involved in a lab, on a project. And honestly, in a lot of our majors, that is stuff that's optional. Okay, but but those who do pursue it, I think end up getting so much more out of their education, and it pays dividends down the road, either when they're in later years on their undergraduate studies, or if they go on to graduate school or industry or whatever, having that that experience of a hands on independent research project is always gonna kind of pay off, I think.
Venkat Raman 27:04
Absolutely. Kevin, any thing more
Kevin P 27:09
Glenn nailed it. Don't be shy, knock on doors, make make opportunities for yourself. And research experience, can help set set you apart from everyone else, when it comes time to do whatever it is you're going to do next. Apologize, gentlemen, I only had a half an hour for this, I'm gonna have to excuse myself. Okay. But I enjoyed chatting with you about this. And you've given me some questions to think further about.
Venkat Raman 27:37
Okay, thanks. Thank you.
What kind of opportunities do students have? I mean, I know, lots of opportunities for engineers. Yes, what's a good way? What's a good way to think about career opportunities?
Glenn 27:59
The thing that makes it hard to answer is not only is there a wide spectrum, but But students tend or graduates tend to find out about themselves and change their focus in in the years after they graduate. But if you just look at students what they do when they get out, this applies to everywhere, engineering education everywhere, but but a good fraction of them go work in industry somewhere.
Glenn 28:35
A lot of them go on to graduate school, not even necessarily in the same discipline, that they got their bachelor's degree. And one of the things that has always fascinated me about engineering is the number of students who do something like go into medical school or law school, or even business school after they get an engineering degree. Because again, an engineering degree is not necessarily just a credential to go and practice engineering, it gives you a lot more skills, including those critical thinking skills that we talked about earlier in this in this program. And those are skills that are very, very important and helpful for someone in some of those other professional disciplines like medical school or law school, or what have you.
Glenn 29:27
The other thing we see a lot is students who might go and do one thing for a few years, but then do a radical shift. I mean, a good example is a mechanical engineering alumna who got her degree just two years ago right prior to the pandemic came back and caught up with me and my office yesterday and she is now feeling very passionate about wanting to get into education. So now she is considering applying for teacher education. programs and one of her goals now is to go and teach science stem, what have you at the elementary school level? So I think that that was a very cool career choice that she seems to be settling on.
Venkat Raman 30:18
Oh, that's true. I mean, it's it's one of these things where there's so many different opportunities. I mean, the question is, how do you decide? And how do you kind of...
Glenn 30:27
Yeah, I think the thing you have to keep in mind is you're not locking yourself in to a certain track. When you get an engineering degree, you It's you have, you know, you have a wide range of options ahead of you whether you choose to pursue them now, or later, you have those those skills.
Venkat Raman 30:51
Glenn, what I'd love to do next is really talk to you about how you got into, in your case, science and then engineering, and then we want to kind of drill down on a couple of different aspects.
Yeah. And I, this is one of those areas that I have been thinking about since you and I first started talking. And it it's, if you trace back to my earlier education, I, there was some kind of trigger, maybe around 10th grade, where, where before, I was kind of just lost, drifting had no good sense of what I was good at, or what I wanted to do. And then something about math just clicked. And I started taking not only the required math courses, but some of the elective ones at well, and just discovered that I enjoyed it, I did well in it. And it also just happens to be the case that my dad is a material scientist. And actually, he was trained as a metallurgical engineer. And, of course, he pushed that as a discipline as a field of study and my teens, perhaps just out of the sense of being rebellious, that that I would never go into that I swore up and down while I might go to college and study engineering, I'm not going to go into metallurgy or materials. But by the time I graduated from high school, I had continued to do well and math and the other various science topics. And it was pretty clear that I, I wanted to pursue engineering broadly. And at the time, most engineering schools didn't make you pick a major going in, that's a little different now. But but by the by the end of my first year of college, lo and behold, I picked material science, and kind of the opposite of what I was threatening to do for a number of years. But I liked the courses, I liked the teachers. But I think one of the attractive things about the discipline, not that it's the only discipline that's like this, but it's one of those disciplines that not a lot of students went into. So your your class sizes were small, your student to faculty ratio was, was small, and there was more of a tight knit community within such a department, and I found that I thrived in that kind of kind of environment. So I, you know, I pursued materials. I, one of the things I learned through taking electives throughout the rest of my education is that I really enjoyed the the mechanical engineering aspect of it, the mathematical analysis, structural side of things, and that's where I drifted to in terms of graduate school.
Venkat Raman 34:04
You know, how do you realize that you're good at something, right? Yes. And so, you know, it sounds like you are good on all the STEM courses in areas. But how did you make that sort of leap to engineering and realize that you are good at it to pursue, not just after, after graduating, going into grad school and so on, so forth?
Glenn 34:31
At that time, tougher one to answer. What I finally got to graduate school and was doing something that was more engineering related. I think there's just It was a feeling of satisfaction of doing something useful with the scientific principles that I was studying. Being able to make a difference for some other development that was going on. You know, engineering and science are inherently creative. elaborative, so it's not just about what you do, it's what other people are doing as well, and being able to help other engineers and be developed stronger materials or, yeah, that, you know, materials that could withstand harsher environments and having the satisfaction of the things that that you did kind of helped directly with that effort, I think is a very important part of it.
Venkat Raman 35:28
Now, you know, why, why did you choose academia? Why did you decide to go there?
Glenn 35:35
Oh, I? That's a good question. And it's one of those deals where I didn't consciously decide that early on, I think I went through most of graduate school, not thinking that I would go down the education route. And I think part of it was driven by the economy at the time, when I was applying for jobs towards the end of grad school. It just was a very downtime for the economy, and there just were no good opportunities. And at the same time, I very much enjoyed the research, I was doing that working with other students. And it just became more of a natural thing, hey, maybe maybe I should be looking at some of these at these academic positions. And one thing led to another I ended up being a postdoc at a different institution. And the research I was working on the project related to materials. The faculty I was working with back back East were heavily interacting with and collaborating with faculty at UCSB. So like, I kind of came to know the faculty here even well before I applied for a job here. And that that definitely. LED was a key and UCSB being one of the several schools I applied to. And just one thing led to another and here I am.
Venkat Raman 37:22
Fabulous, and you've been there, how many years now?
Glenn 37:25
almost 30 years. And don't regret it. Don't regret that for an instant. And I'm, I've always been very confident, and happy that I made I made a wise choice.
Venkat Raman 37:40
So let me ask you one last question, then yes. You know, obviously been doing this for 30 plus 30 years, now you're enjoying every minute of it. Now, what makes it very satisfying? What is the satisfying aspect of this? Or is there one thing? Or is it just a series of things?
Glenn 38:00
I'd say one thing and seeing other students succeed. And when I first started in this job, I think it was more about the research more about the projects. But as I evolved, and grew throughout my career, I think I embraced the teaching side of it more than I thought I ever would. And so it's it's looking at the bigger picture of the impact that those other students are making, as they go out. That's where I think my biggest impact is teaching and inspiring students who are going out and doing all sorts of different things in different areas, all over the world.
Venkat Raman 38:44
Absolutely, absolutely. Must be really, really satisfying.
Glenn 38:48
Like I, I, it kind of ties into the example I mentioned a few moments ago, alumna coming back who herself is going to go into an education career. But I enjoy speaking with these students years after they graduate and learning about what they've done either in the medical profession, or the legal profession or even you know, in the engineering world in which are still working as practicing engineers. It's just also also satisfying to me to see them doing good things.
Venkat Raman 39:23
So, Glenn, this is awesome. This was a great discussion. I thank you and Kevin for taking the time.
Glenn 39:32
Yes. My pleasure.
Venkat Raman 39:33
Sharing what engineering is all about, and I hope to talk more in the future. We can have different conversations, but for now, take care. Thank you.
Glenn 39:41
Thank you. Yep, take care. Bye. Bye.
Venkat 39:51
Hi again!
Hope you enjoyed our podcast on Engineering with Professors Glenn Beltz and Kevin Plaxco of UC Santa Barbara.
Profs Beltz and Plaxco give us a great overview of Engineering, the emerging research areas, the opportunities and what it takes to do undergraduate study in Engineering.
I hope this podcast inspires you to learn more about Engineering.
For your questions or comments on this podcast, please email podcast at almamatters.io [podcast@almamatters.io] with the Subject: Engineering.
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Summary Keywords
Podcast for High Schoolers, College Major, College Majors Podcast, US Colleges, Primer for High Schoolers Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, BioEngineering, BioMedical Engineering, Critical Thinking Skills, Communication Skills, Writing Skills, Bio Sensors, Interdisciplinary Programs, Electrical Engineering, LEDs, Evolution, of California, UC Santa Barbara, UCSB