Field Study: SAC Students Get Close Up Look at Architecture and Engineering Professions

In his first year at San Antonio College, Mohammad Qureshi is majoring in electrical engineering. Although he is familiar with the field – he has family members who are engineers – he never has had the opportunity to actually visit an engineering firm. That changed last Friday during SAC’s Job Shadow Day, an annual meet up between students and professional architects and engineers.

Qureshi spent the morning at Intelligent Engineering Services (IES), a civil and structural engineering firm.  He took a tour of the office and met with some of the employees.

“I asked them about their jobs and what they do; about their favorite projects and also about how life is as an engineer,” he said, adding “I definitely feel now I have a better understanding of what path I want to pursue with electrical engineering. I know I definitely want to try interning in the future for more hands-on job experience.”

Qureshi is a great example of what Danny Cornejo, an associate with the architecture and engineering firm O’Connell Robertson, hopes students will take away from Job Shadow Day. “The benefits I see are the direct impact that this event has on the students,” said Cornejo. “We are just happy to provide this experience for them.”

Cornejo has been one of the main organizers of Job Shadow Day since it began six years ago. This year he said 87 SAC students participated as well as 21 local firms, including Alamo Architects; Ford, Powel, Carson; Lake Flato Architects; CNG Engineering; IES and MEP Engineering.

This was the first year Cecilia Garcia-Hours, principal at MP Studio Landscape Architecture, participated. “We were able to show the students all the processes involved in what we do,” she said, including how her company collaborates with other architects and civil engineers. “The students had many questions and were pretty engaging,” she said.

When asked if she will participate in the future, Garcia-Hours said yes, adding “I think all of us in the office have been at SAC at one point. We know what an important institution it is in our community.”

Job Shadow Day is hosted and coordinated by San Antonio College O’Connell Robertson, and the Alamo Colleges Foundation.

 –SAC–

Photo caption: SAC Student Mohammad Qureshi speaks at a luncheon during Job Shadow Day.