>> I'm an engineer.
I finished graduate school
a couple of years ago,
and my career goal is to
do research and possibly,
eventually become a
professor of engineering.
>> What kind of engineer
are you?
>> I am an electrical engineer.
So electrical engineers
are primarily interested
in harnessing electrical energy.
And they can be applied
for two specific purposes:
The first being, as you
might guess, as I said,
electrical energy is a very
versatile form of energy.
So once you take energy in other
forms, such as fossil fuels
or coal or wind energy or solar,
any of that, and convert it
to electricity, you can transmit
it over large distances.
And it's a very versatile form
of energy, so you can use it
for all kinds of,
you know, utilities,
and it's an important
building block
of the modern infrastructure for
societies all over the world.
The other main application
for electrical engineering is
to use electricity to
transmit information,
to encode information and
store it in various forms.
You can manipulate small amounts
of electrical energy to, yeah,
store information and use it in
communications, you can use it
to control all kinds
of little devices.
Sure. For instance, you could
have a hydroelectric dam
that harnesses energy stored
in moving water, for instance,
which can move a turbine, and
then you can use the turbine
to turn an electrical generator,
and that will produce
electricity.
And once you've converted
energy into electricity,
you can transmit it using power
lines over very large distances.
And then you can also
store it if you need to.
We have lots of advancements
in recent years
with battery technology,
so that's the primary
means of storage.
There are other types
of temporary storage;
capacitors are a
good example of that.
Some people may have
heard these terms.
I'm using a few tech
terms here, but --
yeah, but that's the primary
way of generating energy.
I just gave the example
of hydroelectric power.
There's also windmills.
There are solar cells.
Solar cells basically
take energy from the sun
and they have little
semiconductor devices called
photoelectric cells which
convert light into electricity.
So whenever a photon hits
a photoelectric cell,
it energizes electrons in
the device and they come
out the other end of the device
and you can transmit those.
And if you need to
store them in a battery,
or a rechargeable
battery for instance,
and then reuse that
energy later.
>> Cool. Okay.
That was an excellent
example of some of the jargon
that will be very familiar to
scientists but not as familiar
to a person on the street.
Tell me what is a photon and
why are photons important?
>> All right.
Photon is the most
basic unit of light.
It's the -- there are two
interpretations of how to look
at light, and some people
may know that you can,
on the one hand, think of
light as a stream of particles,
which is a perfectly valid
way of looking at it.
It's also possible to
think of it as a bunch
of waves traveling
through space.
That's somewhat less
intuitive in some ways,
but it's also a perfectly
valid way of looking at it.
And turns out both models are
very accurate and provide all
of the observed results,
they have confirmed them.
And so it just depends on
which mathematical model works
in a particular situation.
So you can model
light, as I said,
both as electromagnetic waves
and also as stream of particles.
And a photon is used to describe
the particle model of light,
and it's the most
basic unit of light.
Well, to start with, I was
always interested in science
from a very young age.
I can think all the way back
when I was eight or nine
and I just seemed to
be fascinated by kinds
of things scientists do,
and I came across this book.
It was at the library.
It was a children's book, but it
was about some famous scientists
through different eras;
you know, starting with,
you know Greek philosophers,
and -- like Aristotle and Plato
and all these people,
Archimedes and all these other,
all the way to the Middle Ages
and beyond, Renaissance era,
and also some of the
modern scientists.
So I just read about
these people
and I just found it fascinating.
And then when I was about nine
I think my father brought me an
electrical hobby kit almost --
it was almost like a toy
really -- as a present.
And soon after that, after
seeing how much I was into it,
he also bought me an
electronics hobby kit.
So it had things like timers
and buzzers and counters
and stop clocks, all
electronic, LEDs, LCD displays.
I could just program to
display whatever I wanted,
that sort of thing,
and a little keypad
where you could push buttons
and make it do things if you,
you know, designed the
right circuit for it.
So, yeah, that's really how I
got interested in engineering
in particular, and went on to
decide probably in middle school
that I would probably become
an electrical engineer.
I was also interested in
biology for a while, but, yeah,
I think the early exposure
to electronic hobby kits
really sealed the deal for me.
Yes. Yeah.
That was another
challenging aspect
of my education was just
figuring out a pathway
to getting a degree
in engineering.
When we -- well, when I finished
high school in New Zealand,
my parents were in the process
of planning another move,
this time to the United States.
And this kind of interfered
with some of my plans
for higher education, because
I'd originally planned to apply
to the University of
Auckland in New Zealand,
but that wasn't really
an option anymore.
My parents preferred
that I went with them --
came here to the U.S. with them.
So what ended up happening
was I had already missed the
application deadlines
at most universities.
Also, the two moves that
happened in quick succession,
you're just -- we'd only been in
New Zealand a couple of years,
so my parents ended
up spending a lot
of money making their
initial move
and then this second moved
to the United States.
My dad was doing this
because he found a much better
and stable job here
in the United States.
So there was this financial
constraint to consider as well.
So in addition to the
fact that I couldn't apply
to any major universities,
we were forced to only look
at community colleges.
So I spent the first couple
of years attending classes
at community colleges.
And then, yeah, fortunately my
academic performance was good
enough to allow me to transfer
to a good four-year
university after that.
So it ended up being much
more economical, of course.
But, yeah, it prepared me
well enough that I was able
to transition into
a four-year program
and then eventually get
my bachelor's degree
in engineering.
At that point I wasn't sure
what I wanted to do in terms
of whether I wanted to further
my education or just work.
I decided to spend a year
working and see how that felt,
and then see if I still
wanted to continue studying.
And so off I went and got a job.
And it was a good
experience overall,
but I felt that I wasn't
being challenged enough.
I wasn't having quite as
much fun as I was hoping.
I was making good money
but I wanted really explore
my career options further,
especially in the direction
of maybe moving more
towards research and not
so much just product development
and the marketing
aspect of things.
So that's when I decided I
wanted to do graduate studies.
But I was still not in
a position financially.
My parents really weren't going
to fund my education anymore,
so, again, I had
to think carefully.
I couldn't really go to a
research one type institution,
a big university as
of yet, so I decided
to attend a local university
in the Metro Detroit area
and get a master's degree there.
So that would be geared more
toward an automotive industry
because that's where
a lot of the graduates
from that university
go, but that, again,
provided me with
a good background,
especially at the graduate
level of doing research
and what have you;
mostly applied research.
And during this process,
I became more interested
in delving into greater
depth into the fundamentals
of engineering, and I
decided I really wanted
to do more theoretical research.
I started looking at pursuing a
PhD in electrical engineering.
But at the same time my
financial situation wasn't
great, so I thought, okay,
I'll take another break
for another year and work
for -- work during that time,
make some more money and
set myself up financially
for the final push
to get the PhD.
So while I was working,
I just started applying
to major research universities,
and I got accepted into MSU
and got a good offer so
I decided to come here.
And luckily, it turned out
I didn't have to spend a lot
of that money I had saved
up because I got assistantships
throughout my duration here
at Michigan State.
