Radhyyah Hossain

10/2/19

 

The Making of a Sturdy Building: A Story About The Floors That Create the Building

 

     “The road to being an engineer is hard, but it’s all about perseverance…” 

 

     Syed Samin is an Engineering Assistant at Turner Construction. Turner Construction’s New York office building was located at 375 Hudson Street. We couldn’t meet in person since he is upstate right now so instead, we called and had the interview over the phone. The interview lasted around an hour since Mr. Samin had to attend a meeting after. I was introduced to Mr.Samin through my brother since Mr. Samin was an alumni from his school and they were friends. 

 

     Mr. Samin attended Cornell University and majored in civil engineering. He decided on civil engineering because he was always fascinated by buildings/ structures and wanted to be a part of the team that helps put up buildings. He was a recent graduate and started working right after college. From an early age, Mr. Samin wanted to be a math teacher and although he is a civil engineer right now, he still wants to teach. He intends to shift into teaching 10-15 years after working at Turner Construction. Before starting his career as a civil engineer, Mr. Samin wanted to pass the FE exam (which is an exam you need to take in order to work as an engineer.), travel, and save up some money. He accomplished all of that and then began working.

 

     Mr. Samin’s first and current job is at the Turner Construction Company. While he is a civil engineer, he works specifically in construction management. Construction management is essentially taking what the architects, structural engineers, and civil engineers design for a building/ structure and plan and disseminate all the necessary information. This ensures that the building/ structure gets built in time, budget, and to the quality that is requested by the owners of the site. They are also the liaisons between the architects, design engineers, owners, and subcontractors (companies who install different components of the building). Since this is Mr. Samin’s first job, he got the job by building up his resume with internships and used his networks to find them. Even though Mr. Samin started working recently, he worked diligently and that resulted in him moving on to budget work, where he will start managing change orders, tracking overall project budget, and more project management work; which is something he works on daily.

 

     Usually, Mr. Samin works on something different every day. He doesn’t have a set schedule which he goes by with, instead, he is assigned a project and works on that project every day. When he first started working, he was an assistant to the engineer who managed the installation of curtain walls (which is the system of glass and metal panels that encloses a building). He would do things such as submitting RFIs (official inquiries from the subcontractor directed towards the architects), drawings, and samples. He would also go to all of the meetings and made sure he captured everything that would be decided on at the meetings. Typically in this field, people work on one project at a time and those projects can range from 1-4 years. Turner Construction likes to mix the different departments so the engineer becomes well rounded in everything by the end. While Mr. Samin works on projects often, he also writes in his job.

 

     It may seem uncommon that engineers write on a daily basis but it is not. Mr. Samin writes emails, spreadsheets, and logs. He writes at least 5 emails a day and on busier days, around 25 emails. On average, in a week, writing takes up about 25% of his day. Mr. Samin writes spreadsheets to organize information regarding the project he is currently working on. While Mr. Samin does not code, he still writes a good amount and uses Microsoft Excel the most. Mr. Samin reads professionally in his job, the logs they create and reads about the Turner Construction company when he can. 

 

To be successful at his job, Mr. Samin uses the software, Bluebeam Revu, every day. This software is basically a stronger Adobe program that lets you easily markup, annotate, and modify PDF files easily. Mr. Samin deals with many different drawings and logs, so this software helps him work on the files easily. He uses another software called Procore. This is used for sending RFIs and submittals (registering samples, product data, technical information) to the architects in the project. He also uses a budget management tool called SAP. Even though Mr. Samin writes and works on his project daily, he also attends a lot of meetings. 

 

     Communication is a big part of Mr. Samin’s job. He attends many meetings, on average, 5-6 meetings a week. Every week Mr. Samin has to attend 2-3 engineering huddles where all the engineers come together to discuss what’s being done for that week and what efforts require collaboration for the different departments (Architectural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and structural team). All of these teams come together and have a 1 all-staff meeting, 1 architectural staff meeting, and smaller internal meetings with our supervisors so everyone can be all caught up and work in sync. Mr. Samin says that by the end of the day, he ends up talking to half the team. However, Mr. Samin was not always such a good communicator. When he first started working at Turner Construction, he didn’t realize how much impact communication has. He quickly learned that there are thousands of hands that touch any single project. When you consider the hundreds of people that work together to manufacture the parts that get put into the building, the team of owners, the team of construction managers, the architects, the security staff, etc, it gets confusing. So, as a general contractor, Mr. Samin is constantly put in positions where he has to manage to appease the owners and architects, but also manage all the subcontractors. With so many people involved in a single project, it is important to be able to speak, write, and communicate confidently and clearly. Mr. Samin does not call as much as he emails but he does occasionally talk to the subcontractor or architects regarding their project. Mr. Samin knows what it is like to be a student wanting to become an engineer since he was one not too long ago. 

 

     As an aspiring engineer myself, I asked Mr. Samin for advice on how to get an engineering career and for college in general. For college in general, Mr. Samin recommended that I do something that I personally enjoy and use different studying strategies. He also recommended using the office hours since it helps you understand the material and the professor to understand you. Careerwise, Mr. Samin strongly suggested that I should challenge myself and not just academically. He recommended that I join a project team and to use that to solidify my desired major/ career path. He told me to use alumni networks from college to look for internships and full-time opportunities. He also recommended using the networks you built for getting referrals for job applications. It highlights your strong work points which give you an advantage. Lastly, Mr. Samin advised to research jobs before you start applying. 

 

     Before seeking out professionals in this field of work, I did not know much about it. I know, from a previous internship, that civil engineers, more specifically the management department, work with everyone that is included in a project. I only knew the surface of what it is actually in a daily life of an engineer. There are so many components such as writing and communicating that goes on just to make one successful team which then makes a successful building/ structure. After interviewing Mr. Samin, I want to push even harder to achieve my goal of becoming an engineer. I originally was set on mechanical engineering but because of my past internship and this interview, I am now also thinking about civil engineering. Going forward, I plan to integrate a lot of the advice I was given because I want to see myself reach my goal.