Angwin Resident Gets a Taste of the Engineering World

Melissa Rose, an Angwin resident and an engineering technology student at Pacific Union College, was sponsored by Mitsubishi to participate in the National Design Engineering Show and Conference in Chicago. During her all expenses-paid trip, which lasted from March 9 to 13, Rose enjoyed royal treatment: a room in the Hyatt Regency, a hefty stipend, and job offers from engineering firms around the country.

Rose's job at the conference involved demonstrating how Mitsubishi's 3D Pro accelerator program could speed up Microstation, a computer automated design (CAD) program by Bentley Systems. Rose also answered visiting engineers' questions about the different capabilities of Microstation.

"It was interesting to meet all the different engineers and talk to them, and to see all the job opportunities out there and how well my major is preparing me," said Rose, who plans to go into aerospace engineering. She especially benefitted from talking with the aerospace engineers: "They told me what people are looking for and what they expect their incoming engineers to know," she said.

Rose made such a good impression on the visiting engineers that she received twelve job offers, several of which were for management positions in computer-automated design. But she wants to finish her education first. After graduating from Pacific Union College in 1998, she plans to earn a master's degree at U.C. Davis and then enter the field of aerospace engineering.