My choice to pursue civil engineering was not a logical or strategic career move. I was 18 at the time and just entering college at Michigan Technological University. When I chose my major I wasn't thinking about where the job market would be when I graduated or what type of salary I expected. Still, I'd always had a keen interest in engineering. When I was young, growing up in Marquette, Mich., math and science constantly competed and tied as my favorite classes. Engineering, civil engineering in particular, was simply the right fit. But that was the easy part--because the strategy, I found, came later.  Throughout my time as an undergraduate student, I tried to develop technically and professionally. I completed a semester of cooperative education with Caterpillar ( CAT - news - people ) as a marketing intern and learned about applying my technical knowledge in nontechnical applications. The co-op experience taught me to work within an interdisciplinary team, something I believe is becoming more and more important for today's engineers.  It has been almost a year since I began my master's degree, and in that time I have done more than I ever thought possible in 12 months. With the help and guidance of my advisor and assistant professor of civil engineering Santiago Pujol, I have been able to become involved with numerous projects.  I am a research assistant for the Network for Earthquake Engineering and Simulation Community and Communications Center at Purdue, which oversees NEES operations. Through this experience I have been able to interact with earthquake engineers, computer scientists and software engineers from across the United States. The work has given me a deeper appreciation of civil engineering and enabled me to work with people with technical and nontechnical backgrounds.  I also am involved with Purdue's earthquake simulator, a shake table used to observe the response to scaled earthquake ground motion. The simulator will be used in future earthquake research.
As a civil engineering student, studying earthquakes may prove very good training when it comes time to find a job.