Mother of Engineering.
Delving into the world of Karen Cooke
“ To be an engineer you have to be okay with failure ”- Karen Cooke. The thing that separates a generic person from an engineer is that a generic person will tend to quit after realizing they are not good at something but, an engineer asks themselves why are they not good at that particular thing and how do they get better at it. An engineer will keep trying until they solve the problem. The definition of an engineer and the motive to never give up were both given to me from Karen Cooke. She started off with chemical engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and as time passed, her passion for mechanics came forth. She learned that chemical engineers build chemical processing plants on a large scale and from there she loved the mechanical section of it rather than the chemistry. This was the reason she switched her major to mechanical engineering.
Her interest in engineering remained within her since she was a child and fixing things was something she admired along with having the mind for mathematics. Mathematics is one of the main reasons for students to pursue engineering. Her passion grew towards the path of a mechanical engineering degree. Yet, performing good in your academics is not enough for the real world as the competition level is high. So, how would an aspiring engineering student achieve such higher success? There are several ways to achieve success in your career. By keeping yourself involved in something productive throughout your college and work life. That’s what Ms. Karen did, she was into the Robotics club, which is also where her interest sparked towards mechanical engineering. The stair of success for Ms.Karen began with working at a distillery where she used to help set up distillation columns to distill spirits such as Vodka. Which was the last portion when she finally figured out that chemistry was not her cup of tea. But there is no such thing as impractical experience, as she said, then the job increased her knowledge about the mechanics on distilling chemicals. After working in this lab, she finally found work based on her cherished major. She started off working as an intern at this company called Opentrons, where is she still working faithfully for more than two years. A production intern as a mechanical assembler. A product cannot be shipped without being tested and guaranteed to work, which is done by a quality controller, a position Ms.Karen got promoted to. She did not stop there because, within no time, she made her way up to the position of Production and Support Associate. In other words, a test engineer at Opentrons. Opentrons is a company whose main motto is to make the life of today’s biologists easier. They make robots which can perform pipetting for biologists, giving the scientists the necessary and extra time to implement designs, experiments and analyzing data.
Diving into the workplace of Ms.Karen, she handles the operation of inspecting the machines and collecting data to find out about the degradation of the product. Analysis of information is needed to find the rate of change or the time before the gadget will be in need of a check-up. Every machine, for example, like a car needs an oil change after it has traveled a certain amount of miles. These are the fulfillment of the requirements of the customers involved as daily work for Ms.Karen. As I mentioned earlier, Ms.Karen is a highly motivated individual. You can also tell that by her choice of books. Currently, she is reading An Anitode to Chaos by Jordan Peterson which also tells us that she likes books about how someone can be a better version of themselves. When asked, she also mentioned that she doesn’t even waste time not being productive while commuting. People will usually listen to music, which she substituted with audiobooks making the time worth it, which is really inspiring.
When you are surrounded with all motivated and diverse engineers it doesn’t mean you can rely on them. According to her, we should always first try to fix any kind of issues in our work by ourself rather asking for help, it increases our own intellect and experience. Communication skills come forth when you need to demonstrate something for a project, in terms of writing she usually has to write emails and create a presentation on occasion. The simple but yet tough jobs of writing are done by Ms.Karen.
“Uncertainty is definitely going to come with engineering” -Karen Cooke. Receiving advice from Ms.Karen made me re-think about how to perceive engineering. Ideas evolve and we should always learn from our failures. And only sticking to your job will not get you too far up the hill. Delving into a new craving for success is something everyone should do. That’s the vision of Ms.Karen, she is planning to start a company on jet skis looking at the profit that could be made. From there, I realized you should always think out of the box.
Conclusively, the interview educated me to start treating college as my job. To always look forward to learning from my downfall. Making connections in college at the extent that the professor knows who you are. For example, you ask your professor for an internship and the professor can lead you to the right person. Not only that, but you also need a recommendation letter sometime in your life. The professor should know you as a person to give you one. Basically, Ms.Karen shaped me to make as many connections a person can. This is the most effective way to make the most of college as a holistic experience. She also gave me a new fresh outlook into the world of a mechanical engineer. Hearing her story gives me confidence that even if I’m not exactly sure about what I am doing, I am on the right track.
