Esther Bérubé
"I wanted to go into engineering because of the variety of projects and the observable immediate impact of one’s work,” says Esther Bérubé. Esther became accustomed to variety early on. Her father was a civil engineer and the family spent years living abroad in Ghana, Venezuela, Niger, and Costa Rica. The living conditions she witnessed in these developing nations greatly influenced her career choice. "I saw a lot of people living in rapidly degrading areas.
Seeing this made me want to find a career where I could make their living conditions more stable and healthy.” Today, Esther has a bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering and a master’s in chemical engineering and works as a junior engineer with Golder Associates in Montreal. She spends much of her time at her desk working on a project-to-project basis. However, two or three days of every month, Esther does get out in the field. Her duties there include supervising the digging of boreholes and taking water or soil samples to monitor environmental quality. "I really do enjoy being out in the field and getting my gloved hands—and safety equipment—dirty.”
In the office, Esther’s duties are varied and they include going over project designs, making calculations, and interacting directly with the client. "They (Golder Associates) are really good that way. They have their hands in so many different projects that I experience a broad range of the steps involved in assessing and treating contaminated sites.” The variety of projects also exposes Esther to a number of different professional styles. "Each project manager and engineer has a different approach,” notes Esther.
As a junior engineer in the company, she learns a great deal from this diversity. There are some drawbacks to Esther’s job. One of the largest is the quantity of information she must absorb and understand in a limited amount of time. While that is intimidating, she continues to surprise herself. "Sometimes I get off the phone with a contractor and say to myself, "Wow, I really knew what I was talking about. And to think only months ago I didn’t know any of this!”
Esther has also realized solving project dilemmas and problems are not nearly as easy in the real world. "When I was studying engineering, every question had a solution, and it was up to the student to reach it. You always knew that the information necessary to solve the problem was provided or readily available.” It wasn’t until she started her job at Golder that she realized, in the real world, every problem still has a solution, but due to constraints of time, money, and the environment, that solution isn’t always so easily reached.
