{"id":64725,"date":"2009-05-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-13T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/charlestown-resident-continues-family-legacy-with-engineering-degree-at-uri\/"},"modified":"2009-05-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-13T00:00:00","slug":"charlestown-resident-continues-family-legacy-with-engineering-degree-at-uri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2009\/05\/charlestown-resident-continues-family-legacy-with-engineering-degree-at-uri\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlestown resident continues family legacy with engineering degree at 溏心vlog免费B站"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 13, 2009 \u2013 Mark Dowdell knew from an early age that he wanted to be an engineer. His father owns an engineering business, and his brother is an engineer as well. As Dowdell prepares to graduate from the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s International Engineering Program, he looks forward to continuing his family\u2019s engineering legacy.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cI just think that I have the right mind for engineering,\u201d said Dowdell, a resident of Charlestown. \u201cAnd a high percentage of people with engineering degrees get good jobs; they\u2019re always in demand.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tThe 溏心vlog免费B站 student chose to pursue a degree in civil engineering because he considers it to be the most practical of the engineering disciplines.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cEverything in the world is civil engineering,\u201d he explained. \u201cThe buildings, the roads, everything below the ground, everything is designed by civil engineers. So I thought it would be a cool field to get into, and a very secure field at the same time. Plus, I ended up enjoying the curriculum.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tHis enthusiasm for engineering even carried over to his choice of a foreign language to study. He chose German, in part because \u201cGermany has a very engineering-type of culture. The way they hold themselves, they\u2019re always very orderly.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tAs part of his education, Dowdell spent five months studying at the Technical University of Braunschweig, in Germany, and six months interning at the structural engineering firm Zublin in Stuttgart.<\/p>\n

<\/object>\u201cMost of the time I got really interesting jobs to do,\u201d he said. \u201cI worked with a doctor on a book he was writing about prefabricated concrete structures; I worked on the reconstruction of a mall that had been damaged; and I did a lot of design work. My main project was as a plan manager for a skyscraper they were building in Frankfurt.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tDowdell\u2019s biggest challenge came in feeling confident in his German language skills.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cIt wasn\u2019t as hard as everyone thinks, but it was definitely difficult,\u201d he said. \u201cThe biggest advice I could give is to just jump into it. Forget the fact that you sound like an idiot when you\u2019re speaking, forget that the Germans are saying to themselves, \u2018Oh, man, we\u2019ve got another American.\u2019 Everybody was great, they helped us learn, they were very patient, and I ended up making a lot of friends there.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tUpon his return from Germany, Dowdell became an ambassador for the 溏心vlog免费B站 International Engineering Program, assisting at open houses and other events and spreading the word about the value of the University\u2019s most notable engineering program.<\/p>\n


\n\tNext up for the new 溏心vlog免费B站 graduate will be a full-time job at Pare Engineering Corp. in Lincoln. Dowdell recently accepted a position there as an environmental engineer, a job that will find him helping the company address water run-off and other environmental issues at the Johnston landfill, among other projects. <\/p>\n


\n\tHe hopes to someday earn his professional engineering certification and go to graduate school, but for now he said he\u2019s just happy to have a job. Eventually, though, he may join his father\u2019s engineering business.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cOr maybe not,\u201d Dowdell said. \u201cWho knows where my current job will take me. One thing I do know is that some day I\u2019d like to start a business and run my own company.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 13, 2009 \u2013 Mark Dowdell knew from an early age that he wanted to be an engineer. His father owns an engineering business, and his brother is an engineer as well. As Dowdell prepares to graduate from the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s International Engineering Program, he looks forward to continuing his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64727,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}