Interview Report

Xiaozhi.Zhu (Jeremy)

10/11/2018

The Potential of Civil Engineers

Interview Structure Engineer Scofield Sun

“My buildings will be my legacy. They will speak for me, long after I’m gone.” said by Julia Morgan. This quote is probably the essence of the Civil engineering industry because the Civil engineer is a painter of the city and making the city’s architecture look ingenious and unique. It’s my great honor to interview him, Mr.Scofield, he is an entry-level Civil engineering structural engineer at King’s Group Inc, Flushing, New York. King’s Group Inc is a small private investment and development group that is currently in its infancy and has a size of 50 employees in total. I met Scofield through my former part-time job, probably in 2016, when he was an internship because our major and hobbies were the same, so we stayed in contact with each other since then.

He is an immigrant just like me, and fortunately, he is also from China, so we talked more speculatively. When we talked about education, he’s willing to talk more happily, he told me that he had a bachelor’s degree City College of New York, and then he went to Cornell University to finish his master’s degree in Civil engineering. When Mr.Scofield was little, he’d always had the problem with his parents because of his hobby and passion of digging the dams and tunnels at the backyard. He’d always missing that time and that’s when he developed his interest in Civil engineering because as he said, “Passion leads the way and future.”

Mr.Scofield’s path to becoming a Civil engineering structural section engineer was not always smooth because, in his first job, he was fired as just an intern by the company, he did not quit but he did got fired by the company he worked (which he did not want to tell the name of it)  due to his lack of ability and inexperienced expertise. (Not very good at QC and QA) That experience was less than two month, and he failed to pass the internship period so that directly resulted him fired.

After many failures, he came to a small-scale construction company held by a Chinese-American guy. Because it is a small company, so the requirements are not that high and he got in successfully without a doubt. He started from the bottom, worked as the Civil engineering structural engineer assistant, he accumulated professional experience while well prepared himself for a better job in the future. Soon after, he quit this job and got a better job position in the King’s Group Inc. As a Structural section engineer, Mr.Scofield spend most of his time designing houses, bridges, highways, etc. He worked with a team of 5, which they are more specialized in designing apartments and houses. However, also depending upon the project they got, it leads to different designing structures, such as construction systems, brickwork, and blockwork, also the cladding. His team also design and detail detention pond walls, retaining walls, and other structures. (The skill of QA/QC, sometimes AutoCAD, and STAAD are very important)

As a Civil engineering structural engineer, if Mr.Scofield and his team receive a complicated engineering project, they will usually have a conference, and they sit down and talk while giving each other opinions shared with each other. In order to solve the problems encountered in the work. This is the communication method we use most often, which is how most civil engineers communicate. As Mr.Scofield also said, he really enjoys working as a team, which full of engineers every day because he felt that his life got satisfied a lot by this way as a team to complete a project.

On the other hand, he told me that he was on the phone approximately 3-4 more hours a day, but depending on the projects he got. Sometime it might be more hours on the phone or email and sometime it might be less, and it’s very unstable overall, Mr.Scofield said.  It is also very common to communicate by telephone, because after all, it is necessary to report to the superiors of the working progress or any necessary demand, also, the needs from some construction workers. He also told me that, he has to bring his phone with him 24/7, in case of an emergency, sometimes a special work phone is needed. He then told me in detail how he spends all his time. For example, he would spend 1 hour to check and reply to his mailbox at noon every day because sometimes there are also reports of progress, and some specific forms of information, some important construction material data, and the use and reporting of the funds, and etc., so he has to use email.

In the closing, Mr.Scofield gave me a lot of his precious advice. For example, he told me, but also to all Civil engineering students when we are in the college, we should focus more on scientific subjects, such as physics, chemistry, mechanics, and of course, the most important thing is mathematics. However, if there’s the chance, apply for internships in small companies as much as possible because the small companies’ requirement is not that high and it is easier to get in, it helps even more for newcomers. In addition, looking back to my interview I realized that, as a Civil engineer, I must pay attention to the comprehensiveness of the problem and not consider it unilaterally. Most importantly, as an engineer, also as a team, we should focus more on cooperation with people, only win-win is the real win in our careers.