WHY I CHOSE ENGINEERING FOR MY LIFE'S WORK
THESIS FOR
MARYLAND BETA GRAFTER
TAU BETA PI
BY
Vaiil E. Underwood
V
SUMMARY
I have tried to explain throughout this thesis
that my choice of a life's occupation was due to environ-
ment and an inherent curiosity to learn what made things
work.
THE AUTHOR
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Why I Chose Engineering For My Life's Work.
/
Engineering- as my life's work was not a matter of
choice but one of necessity. I have always been possessed
with an insatiable desire to know how ana why things worked.
At the age of three I was punished for besting out
the plaster brains of my siBter's doil to find out how it
opened and closed its eyes.
While I was in grade school we Uvea next door to the
man who owned the pov/er and light system in our town, and about
cnce a month he would take me to the power plant with him.
These periodic visits were the greatest events in my ilfe^and
I can still rememDer how I felt on my first trip. I stood in the
door listening to the noise of an oid Corliss engine, hail'
afraid to enter, w ; .iie cold chilis of fearful delight raised
goose pirnpiee all over me. When he took me by the hand and led
me to within three feet of the big flywheel, I was almost
overcome with both fright ana happiness.
When 1 was a little oiaer I reaa that Ell Whitney,
while a boy , haa taken a watch apart and put It back together,
and no one had known the aifference until he tola them. Not
having a watch hanay, I took the alarm clock ana went to the
coal shea. History falls to relate how Eli got the mainspring
back. The case of the missing alarm clock was unsolved for
years .
-3-
, iVhen I was twelve, a ooy, who was sweet on my sister,
taught me to drive a IK c a el T Ford. This was my first experience
at actually operating machinery, ana I've never gotten over the
thrill it gave me, notwithstanding the fact that I tore up the
front end of the Ford on a telephone pole.
After I graduated from high school I got a job work-
ing for a power company. The old local company had sold out to
a digger company, and the o±d steam plant had Deen replaced with
oil engines. This plant was operated as an auxiliary piant from
Key to December. There were only two of us working at the plant,
and I received my most rapid promotion on that joo. During the
two years I worKed there I was promoted from oiler, to maintenance
man, to operator, ana just oefore the plant was permanently closed
the other fellow quit, and I oecame chief engineer; all of these
at the same salary.
The following winter I worked at different oaa joos,
but when summer came I went to Kansas City and pot a job with a
pipe line company layinp wfter mains in a new subdivision. My
new job w ; s oiling a ditch machine. The weather was hot, and my
operator was lazy, so the only time he aian't set unaer a tree
was while the doss was arou d.
That fall I got the opportunity to go to school. My
choice was odvioue. Even with mathematics and drafting I had to
study mejhanicai engineering
I'm not certain whether I chose engineering or it
chose me.
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