After a hiatus, the Bold E has returned! As I mentioned before, I decide to return to school for a master’s degree. I thought I would be able to handle the transition gracefully and without too much disruption to my life. But that just goes to show how long I’ve been out of the school game. Needless to say, it took much more of my time and concentration to balance school, work, and life at home. The refocusing paid off:…
Last year, I volunteered for an event that was designed to showcase various engineering disciplines to a group of young girls from at-risk communities to show them all the possibilities that engineering could offer as a career. I gave the introduction to the event, and I was encouraged to go into why I picked engineering as my major of choice when I went to college, among other things. As I was putting my presentation together, it made me realize that…
I am embarking on an exciting new journey soon: I’m going back to school! I’ll spend two years working towards a master’s degree. Since I’ve started sharing with people my intentions to become a student again, I’ve gotten a lot of questions. “How are you paying for it? When does it start? How long will it last? What will you do with it? Why did you pick this degree? Will it help your career?” And most amusing to me, “Why…
Immediately after graduating college, I spent some time living in Chicago. My then-boyfriend (turned now-husband) had gotten a really good job offer post graduation and I was still looking, so I decided to move with him and see what the big city could offer me. What it had to offer was anxiety, loneliness, and a distinct lack of jobs and money for a mechanical engineer who wanted to do product development. In one of my days trying to find ways…
I previously talked about my 5 Design Rules to Live By, drawn from the design mind-sets from Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. Today, I would like to talk about the final rule, Rule 5 – radical collaboration. What is it and why is it important? Radical collaboration, simply put, means that you aren’t alone. When you are confronted by a problem, it is easy to get absorbed in our…
I previously talked about my 5 Design Rules to Live By, drawn from the design mind-sets from Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. Today, I would like to talk about Rule 4 – knowing it’s a process. What is it? “Knowing it’s a process” is being aware that you are on a journey. It is recognizing that the journey has many steps to it, and if you are aware of…
I previously talked about my 5 Design Rules to Live By, drawn from the design mind-sets from Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. Today, I would like to talk about Rule 3 – reframing (and I promise that it will be much shorter than Rule 2). What is reframing? Try doing this really quick exercise. Find a spot that you are fairly familiar with. Now physically rearrange yourself so that…
I previously talked about my 5 Design Rules to Live By, drawn from the design mind-sets from Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. Today, I would like to talk about Rule 2 – having a bias to action. Engineers are typically very risk averse. We’re trained to know what it is we want to accomplish, have a detailed plan, and to deliver something that is fail-proof. Old office culture would…
I previously talked about my 5 Design Rules to Live By, drawn from the design mind-sets from Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. Today, I would like to talk about Rule 1 – being curious. Why should you care about curiosity? Curiosity is a powerful, valuable skill that can have wide ranging impacts to our lives, including many health benefits. Thanks to a phenomenon called neuroplasticity, our brains have the continuous ability to…
Today I would like to introduce to you what I’ve been calling the 5 Design Rules. First, here’s some background: I have a pretty long commute to work. It takes me about an hour in normal traffic to get to work and home every day. So a while back, I decided to use that time more productively by listening to more podcasts and audiobooks. That’s how I found myself listening to Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful…