Daniel Lamar

March 19th, 2021

Cumulative Reflection

As my career as a student at Iowa State University comes to a close, I am reminded of how

blessed I am too have had to opportunity to learn and grow as such a great university. I am incredibly
excited to finally graduate and move forward in my career as an engineer, but I am also incredibly
grateful that my four years spent at Iowa State amounted to much more that a Bachelor of Science.

Iowa State’s college of engineering does an incredible job at preparing students well, not just
for the following semester of their education, but also for their future career. The faculty in the
Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECPE) department are focused on giving as many career-
building opportunities as they can for their students. From extensive career fairs, to pizza nights with
guest speakers, and so much more, they have always shown a strong passion for their student’s
professional success. As a result, the engineering classes are incredibly challenging, yet incredibly
applicable to an engineering career. My professors often reminded the class of their motives behind
every lab, assignment, learning objective, and skill tested, and they always revealed why these tasks
were important in equipping us for our professional careers. This career-oriented motivation for
learning is best shown by the projects assigned in various classes. Most of my projects were taken
directly from a professor’s professional experience. They would make us solve difficult problems and
design in-depth circuits in teams because this is exactly how engineers do their work in the real world.
Even when I lacked any sense of excitement for a newly assigned project, I understood that I would
learn truly applicable skills and processes upon completing it. Although many of my professors have
been out of the engineering industry for years, even decades, they were aware of how the industry was
changing, i.e., new industry standards, newly developed technology, the trajectory of current
technology, etc. In doing so, they themselves were evidence of the importance of Lifelong Learning, a
subject heavily emphasized in the ECPE.

Engineering is an ever-changing, ever-growing field that becomes increasingly complex as new

discoveries into the world of math and science are made. For example, how can an engineer from the
50’s be of use to the industry in the 90’s if they never learned about the rapid advancement in
computing technologies? There needs to be a continual learning process at work in an engineer’s life in
order to adapt to such a rapidly advancing industry. Therefore, all engineers must adopt a practice of
Lifelong Learning if they desire to be an asset to the industry for the entire span of their career. We
experienced an example of this on a global during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the span of a week,
professors and students alike had to learn how to teach and attend classes virtually. Had the student
body and faculty not been adaptable and able to learn a new normal, this past year would have been an
educational catastrophe. For some, it was. But for those who considered the new normal something
that required our collective learning effort, it was still a successful semester of classes. With this
transition, I had to learn a whopping seven new software systems to complete my classwork virtual
equivalent from home. This was incredibly challenging, especially mid-semester, where I was just
becoming comfortable with using new lab equipment. Yet, I learned how to problem solve despite the
setbacks and ultimately learned even more than I would had there not been a pandemic. I will continue
to practice Lifelong Learning in my professional career as it was one of the most important lessons I
learned while at Iowa State, and I hope to use any influence I have in my career to inspire others to do
the same.