Alishia Ballard graduated in 2015 with a degree in civil engineering from San Diego State University. After graduating, she has been interning with San Francisco Public Works in their structural engineering section. Structural engineering is a subcategory of civil engineering, and it often involves designing, inspecting and analyzing structures like bridges and buildings. Learn more here: http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2016/01/15/...

Transcript:

Sometimes with engineers, there's a stereotype like, "No, you just like to go inside and be an introvert and just read textbooks all day." Definitely not me. I like to talk, I like to hang out with friends, I love basketball, I love sports.

Hello everyone, my name is Alishia Ballard, and I'm a structural engineer currently working at San Francisco Public Works. Structural engineers work on all the plans in order to develop structures like bridges, infrastructure like large buildings. Also doing analysis, figuring out if those structures are safe. Here at the San Francisco Public Works, I do things like go out on site visits and do bridge inspections. When we go out on a bridge inspection, we are looking at new things that have occurred with that bridge. To see if something has occurred and that we need a repair immediately. We take those things seriously for the safety of our community. Also aside from that, we go out on site facility visits for the different projects that we do, and just double check dimensions, look at the scope of the work. You have to make sure that you are aware of everything going on, and then go back and make sure you design it until it can go through to the construction.

One of the things that I really love about being an engineer is being able to help people. Being part of public works means that you are working for the public. You'd get a chance to give back to your community. All of the structures that I work on, everything that I inspect is for the people around me. The first thing that you have to do when you want to become an engineer is go to a college, that was my first step. I graduated from San Diego State University with a degree in Civil Engineering. My advise to students pursuing engineering, is definitely find a mentor. Find a mentor while you are in high school, even middle school if you can. I found mentorship in my student organisation called NASBE, National Society of Black Engineers. There were many people that just cared to see me go somewhere. With that being said, I went to a conference in San Francisco, and a recruiter picked me out and I got my opportunity here at San Francisco Public Works.