Professional Background
a. Interviewee name: Ricardo Bazan
b. Interviewee’s specific degree: Bachelor Degree of Civil Engineer
c. Interviewee’s place of employment: self-employed, Banell Development
d. Interviewee’s email address: rbazan@banelldevelopment.com
Professional Interview
· Please describe your engineering field.
"Civil Engineering is the study of nature and how the humans, persons want to change that to put some buildings or infrastructures to serve the people. And along the way, how to make it safe, how you are going to influence nature, the land and the environment, how you are going to contain it if you need to. For example dams, culverts, or bridges, stuff like that. It is pretty broad."
· How long have you been doing this? "About 10 years."
· What is your current job title?
"Civil Engineer."
· Please describe your particular job and duties.
"Right now it varies a lot as I am more self-employed now, I have to do everything really. So that means i have to do the engineering portion of it, like designing, like doing plans, drafting plans and stuff like that, and also doing manager duties. And also getting clients. So I have to do marketing, I have to do marketing (going out there meeting people, going to seminars). So its pretty broad now. A civil engineer can have a specific job. Most of the engineers are in design, or construction, or consulting. So, previously, my previous job, for example was basically all design. So, stay at the office and go through plans and design plans and prepare plans, but never actually went out to the field. Not supervising the construction process because that will be the job of another engineer, a field engineer. Civil engineer is very broad, sometimes you don't specialize in a lot of things."
· What is your average work schedule?
"Now I have a lot more flexible time, but I would say it starts around 9 o'clock in the morning and it can end probably 8 o'clock at night. Some days it starts at 10 in the morning and end, you know like, at 3 o'clock, 3 PM, depending on the day. If you get really busy, you work Saturdays and Sundays. For example, today is Friday and I'm drafting a plan, and I'm planning to do so after this meeting and its Friday night, you known, probably tomorrow I'm going to do the same thing. So it really depends."
· Starting with high school, describe your educational background chronologically.
"In high school, I did just regular high school stuff, like, umm, I always went well with the math. You know, obviously for engineering you have to do math a lot. Pre-calculus, and then calculus and then went to college and doing all the calculus and all the engineering work, physics, chemistry, biology ... what else is out there... ya, so, and then after college, that was it and then you graduate, well in college, obviously beside the core courses that I just talk about, you do the civil engineering classes. The basic stuff is, umm... surveying, class of surveying, a class of basic transportation, basic structural design, basic soil, soil is engineering, chemical engineering, water resources, hydrology, stuff like that. But then for me I specialized on transportation and water resources. Transportation we had to do a bunch of class on traffic and road design. So there's two different things, traffic is one thing, transportation is one thing [...] traffic is part of transportation but it is not the same thing. And the water resources is pretty broad also, you have to ... water resources has hydrology, which is is basically rain water and how you convey that in culverts and rivers and stuff like that, including dams. And then hydrology [hydraulics] is actually the physics of the water going over a certain infrastructure like pipes, and over a dam, or inside a channel, that's hydrology. So that's my expertise, hydrology, hydraulics, and transportation."
· If you had it to do over, related to your career or education, would you do anything differently?
"I think I would do it the same, the only thing, umm... probably I'll try to, maybe, if I had had the chance, I didn't really, is jump almost immediately after the bachelor go into a masters degree of some sort. But sometimes you are either not sure which masters you want to take, you know, when you graduate. You just did your bachelor, it is really a broad view of the whole engineering and it really doesn't specialize you in anything until actually you hit the work place. And I think if I had to do it again I would probably do the same thing. Just hit the work place, work for a couple years and then do the masters."
· And now, at this point of your career, would you know exactly, if you were going to do you masters, do you know what you would go towards?
"Ya, actually, the masters, umm.. the funny thing is that, engineering is really good,umm... you can master it, the field that your in, in civil engineer for example water resources, just with work experience, you would master it. But civil engineering only takes you up to a point in the world business of the... so if i would do the master, actually I would to the MBA now instead of civil engineer master. The reason for that is that, umm... an engineer you move up the ladder, but it's extremely important once you hit a certain level after a few years of going up the ladder, a civil engineer, you start managing projects more, people more, business more. And none of that you have studied, you not ready because school you don't study any of that in the civil engineering profession, so an you only learn it at work, but sometimes, like engineering, you need the fundamentals, and that you get from school."
· What advice would you give to me as someone interested in pursuing a career path similar to yours?
"If you like it, if you like the observing a lot of the natural occurrences of the world, if you like making a difference, umm... infrastructure for people for safety, I would advise you to go into it. But as far as advice you need to be dedicated, dedicated all the time, like I said, going to school to pursue engineering is difficult, it's not easy. And it's not the difficult as far as brain wise, but you have to be dedicated like study all the time, you know, sometimes you have a weekend were you go just study, you do homework instead of cram for exams for example. So you have to be dedicated. It's rewarding because you known that once you work and do things, you know that their going to be built and you see them and you can tell your friends, 'I designed that,' or I know how everything works around here, which is really cool."
·What college did you go to?
"San Jose State." Majored in Civil Engineering. No minors.
Words of Advice
- Since he owns his own business, Mr. Bazan stated that "At first your everything" and you learn that you "have to delegate" work.
- He cautioned, "Don't be afraid of taking the long road."
- "Everything will click together" so just give it time
- "Double check everything."
Personal Reflection
a. What surprised you the most about the interview?
What surprised me was the concept of hydrology. I had no idea that it was so complex and present in everyday life to the extent that it is.
b. What was the most important piece of information that you learned from the interview?
All the information I learned from speaking with Mr. Bazan were all important in their own light. He may not have mentioned anything to this fact, but what he told me made me realize that the little things in life are superfluous to the bigger picture. The stress that may come out of work and other things are part of the road taken to success and reward. If you take school seriously and stay dedicated, you will come out with knowledge that will help you in many aspects of your life.
c. How has this interview influenced your feelings about your future career?
I believe that my feelings about my future career have been reinforced. All the information I have received from Mr. Bazan has increased my want to join the engineering field. It may not be easy, but it seems like a small price for the reward of success you earn. I believe that living life the easy way takes away from living.
