This is why I love my job! I couldn’t tell you my favorite part: help preparing the next generation of purpose-driven engineers? Getting to advise amazing PhD students and help them find and pursue their dreams? Collaborating with such a warm, welcoming, supportive group of people I get to call colleagues? I don’t know. But these moments when everyone comes together to help each other grow are at the top of the list.
Sure — papers and grants are a necessary part of the job but they’re not our WHY. They’re just an instrument to get there.
This in these images: that’s our WHY. This was our graduate seminar today: a space where grad students from our Civil, Architectural & Environmental Engineering at Drexel University presented their work to other students and faculty to get feedback. But not conference-like, ego-based “I have a better way to do that” feedback. Constructive, encouraging feedback to help them grow.
I used to think that academia was a place where people left their egos behind and came together to save the world. Later, I learned how naive that thought was. But (risking sounding melodramatic) in moments like today, I think that maybe I wasn’t so wrong about it after all.
Thank you to our amazing CAEE community for showing up today!
Lastly, and most importantly: Thank you, Cagla Keles for the amazing job you did in your presentation! You really did shine. I’m so proud of you!! It’s been really wonderful to watch you grow with every practice, every presentation, every draft, every paper. And thank you for making me grow too! I’m a better advisor because of you.
And thank you Mohsen Bahmanyar and Niyousha Niknezhad for joining our lab and already doing great work. I look forward to seeing you presenting next, and to watch you grow throughout your PhDs.
