2/27/2013
Michael Goodlow started his electrical engineering schooling in fall 2011. But his education actually began 12 years prior with hands on experience as an electrician on a nuclear submarine.
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Michael Goodlow started his electrical engineering schooling in fall 2011. But his education actually began 12 years prior with hands on experience as an electrician on a nuclear submarine.
Michael Goodlow
Dr. Nick Osborne, director of veterans programs at Illinois, and a veteran of the Coast Guard, said these nearly 400 students are largely successful in the classroom as a result of their experience in the United States military.
“When they come here as students, oftentimes, they’ve already worked for three years or four years,” Osborne said. “They’re used to getting up early, used to working long hours, so they have a lot of practical experience and good habits. Engineering is such a demanding program and I think that veterans have the added benefit of being really disciplined because of our service backgrounds.”
Goodlow served aboard the USS Pennsylvania out of Kings Bay, Georgia as an electrician from 1999 until mid-2002 when he went to New York as an instructor through 2005. He finished out his Navy career aboard the USS Maine out of Bangor, Washington from 2006 to 2009.
After leaving the military in 2009, Goodlow explored various job opportunities in hopes of applying his electrical knowledge to a civilian career. But just as he was exiting the Navy, the recession was in full force and jobs were thin. He interviewed for a job as an operator in a nuclear power plant — something he has 12 years of experience in on a nuclear submarine.
“I didn’t get hired,” he said. “But I know one of the guys that did had no experience whatsoever and he had a degree in finance. I kept getting passed over for a lot of guys who had degrees but no experience.”
At that point, Goodlow felt the need to seek out some post-military education, which brought him to Illinois.
The 36-year-old sophomore is far more experienced that the average electrical engineering student, but while his coursework touches on subjects he’s already familiar with, it goes into much greater detail and depth — the design aspects, the calculus behind those designs — than his Naval training.
“It’s more what you’re using and understanding how it works and if it breaks, they give you enough knowledge to figure out what’s wrong,” he said. “But you didn’t need to go into designing a whole new electrical system for the submarine. They kind of stripped all the math out of it because you didn’t need it.”
And not only is he rusty in the math concepts behind the practical applications — he hadn’t taken a math course since the late 1990s — some of his knowledge was behind the times due to the outdated nature of submarines’ technology, which Goodlow says is mostly from the ‘50s and ‘60s.
“They want something that’s tested and proven,” he said. “If some brand new technology comes, they’re not going to put it on ships in the Navy for another 15 years when they know it’s going to work for a long period of time.”
While some coursework may be familiar to student veterans, particularly those who chose a similar paths to Goodlow, Osborne said it’s rare that any will come to him and say it’s redundant or a waste of their time.
“They’ll say, ‘Even though I’ve had this before, this is a nice refresher, or the way I learned in the military is different than the way they’re teaching it here,’” he said.
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Writer/Photographer: Chad Thornburg, Engineering Communications Office
If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, editor, Engineering Communications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 217/244-7716.