UW CEE Senior Begum Birsoz
While keeping both feet on the ground, senior Begum Birsoz’s summer revolved around airplanes. As an intern at The Boeing Company in Everett, Wash., Birsoz spent three months working as a payloads design engineering intern, where she completed a variety of projects related to the carrying capacity of commercial airplane models.
“The internship was definitely the most valuable and unique career experience I have ever had,” Birsoz said. “I jumped into the aviation industry with no prior knowledge or experience in the field.”
With a need for engineers from all disciplines, Boeing is full of opportunities for civil engineers, Birsoz said. In just three months’ time, Birsoz gained a fundamental understanding of requirement-based design engineering, which entails determining user expectations prior to designing new features.
One of the most exciting assignments Birsoz completed during the internship entailed developing security training for Boeing seat design engineers to utilize in order to comply with specific security-related Federal Aviation Administration regulations. Developing the training, on a highly subjective topic, required Birsoz to use engineering judgement to deliver a “clear, complete, concise message with only one interpretation to the audience.”
“While developing the training package, I witnessed both new and experienced engineers face real problems,” Birsoz said. “I observed their reactions to adversities and how they handled work pressure.”
The assignments were often not fully defined, Birsoz said, which prompted her to think outside the box. New projects required a number of steps, including defining the problem, brainstorming and discussions with experts on various topics.
“I realized the difference from working on engineering problems from college course assignments, where detailed directions lead to definite answers,” Birsoz said.
Throughout the internship, Birsoz was mentored by UW CEE alumnus Wade Price (CEE ‘81), an Associate Technical Fellow at Boeing. She also worked alongside fellow intern Renee Engleson, a UW CEE senior. Price provided guidance and constructive feedback during every step, Birsoz said.
“Wade treated us as full-time engineers and allowed us to reach our full potential,” Birsoz said. “He cared for our growth and provided us the fitting level of challenge.”
The internship also gave Birsoz an opportunity to hone her communication skills. After preparing the training, she and Engleson delivered a technical presentation to more than 30 seat design engineers.
“Presenting the completed training to a tough crowd of engineers was by far the most challenging, yet rewarding accomplishment of my internship,” Birsoz said. “I learned the importance of presenting information according to the audience and being confident of my work.”
Birsoz learned about the internship opportunity during a UW CEE department information session last fall.
“I cannot stress enough how valuable it is for the UW CEE Department to maintain their network with alumni,” Birsoz said. “As the founder and president of the Structural Engineering Association of Washington’s UW student chapter, I hope to contribute to building this type of network between UW CEE students and the rest of civil engineering.”