PODCAST: Engineering Is Enabling

In this first episode, Maddie chats with Baja Captain Veronica Holloway on all things Off Road Illini, youtube rabbit holes, and of course that burning question- what is engineering?

 

Captioning

Maddie Rice  
 Hello and welcome to engineering is a Grainger College of Engineering network podcast where we get to the root of STEM with Grainger engineering students. I'm your host Maddie Rice and today I'm joined by Veronica Holloway.

Veronica Holloway  
Hello. Very exciting.

Maddie Rice  
Wow, thanks for being our first guest. A student podcast

Veronica Holloway  
I'm truly honored to be honest. You know, I I've been waiting for the day to be able to talk about engineering for half an hour straight and not have anyone stop me. So I'm excited. I'm excited.

Maddie Rice  
Thanks for hopping on board this maiden voyage

but basically since it's our first episode I guess I'll give a little bit of a preview of what you're buckling up for. So essentially, I am a non-STEM person. I've never been great at STEM, I don't, being frank, I don't really loves STEM. And I feel like sometimes STEM doesn't love me. That's kind of our relationship that I feel like it's time that I really learned from my peers because we're both students here at the University of Illinois. And yeah, I'm just I understand people more than I do Engineering, so I think if I understand the person behind engineering, I'll get to the root of STEM. Yeah, what is it? Yeah, that's what I'm trying to figure out. 

Veronica Holloway  
And here's the thing. I'm excited about STEM so hopefully I can share that a little bit.

Maddie Rice  
I love that I get excited by things that other people are excited about. I am like a second hand passions kind of person. 

Veronica Holloway  
I get that. I get that 100%. Okay, you're excited about something I want to hear about it. So

Maddie Rice  
great. Alright, so this will be awesome then. So I guess we'll just start off with a little bit of a basic intro of your name, your major, programs.

Veronica Holloway  
Yeah. So I'm Veronica Holloway, and I'm majoring in mechanical engineering going into my senior year. And this year, I am one of the captains of the Baja SAE team, which is extremely exciting. And if you let me I would talk about B aja for the rest of my life.

Maddie Rice  
Oh my gosh, okay, let's start with like a 30 minute and maybe we'll continue the rest of your life later.

Veronica Holloway  
Then we can start a whole other podcast that's just for Baja.

Maddie Rice  
It's like a pyramid scheme. No, I'm talking about what you are. Very niche market. There's someone out there.

Veronica Holloway  
  Only the Baja team would listen to it, but it's fine.

Maddie Rice  
I mean, you'd have a blast. I'll teach you how to do this once I figure it out. So Baja. What is Baja?

Veronica Holloway  
So Baha is an off road racing team. It's an international collegiate competition. Okay, so basically their teams and the United States, Canada, Brazil, India, China. And for the US teams, we go to three SAE sanctioned competitions a year. To be specific. SAE stands for a Society of Automotive Engineers. Basically, every year you build a car, and then you go to this competition and you're testing not only how well the car performs, but also how well you are how well you do at, like, explaining your design choices, explaining why something cost this much, selling it to people. So we have a sales presentation, design presentation, and cost report, as well as we have dynamic events for how well the car performs. And the big, exciting part of the competition is a four hour endurance race, where all the cars are on the course that once and they're all driving, trying to get as many laps as possible, trying not to break down and all that stuff. And the best part of it is truly, there are a lot of things that could go wrong in a Baja competition. It's off road. You design as best as you can. But if something breaks, you take your car off, you fix it, and then you send it back on as soon as possible. So, it's it's very exciting. Like Baja competitions are some of the most fun things to be at. To go off on a tangent when we're in California for competition over the summer, there were a ton of people from the area that just came to watch the competition that had no stock in it. And like for me being someone who had like, invested emotion and car competing, it was really like funny watching people who didn't have any like bias or any sort of allegiance to anyone watching as cars like went by and someone break and their reactions to it were so different to actually competing.

Maddie Rice  
It's like watching you.

Veronica Holloway  
It would just be like, wow, that doesn't look great. Oh that cars fast. It was always fun and I don't know like for us like obviously we have a great time at competition but we also completely we care about how all we do. So I was like, 'Man, these people are living the life. They can just come, see cars race, see cars break. One car in Tennessee, one of their wheels came off and then they went 14 laps with one wheel hanging off. It was crazy. I love that.

Maddie Rice  
That's like extreme STEM.

Veronica Holloway  
I think that's almost the best way to describe Baja as a competition. It's like the x game. 

Maddie Rice  
I was going to say same thing. I was like, 'this is the X Games. But like, there's more to it.' There's some real meat on the bone.

Veronica Holloway  
Yeah, it's X Games, but then you're like putting a lot of engineering into it.

Maddie Rice  
Oh, my gosh. Cool. That's really cool. So what do you think is like your typical commitment to that. Like what is that like? Do you have like a practice or just like workshop time?

Veronica Holloway  
Yeah, yeah. So um, basically we have a couple of structures, right? So the main staples of it are; We have a general meeting on Wednesdays. And basically, that's a way to communicate with everyone on the team about what the status is. Sometimes we have companies come and talk to us and so it's a good way to like, kind of like group up, get together and talk about stuff, but also the it gives us an opportunity to like, introduce our members to different companies and representatives from companies. Or we'll do things like tech talks where we can talk about something important in industry or in our competition that maybe people on the team wouldn't get exposed to otherwise. And then we have shop days on Saturdays, that's also a staple. So that's where we go into the Engineering Student Projects Laboratory and we do work on the cars or we do work for the shop. There's a ton of different options of things we do on that day. Then we also have different sub teams that people can be a part of, so those will have meetings. There's something in mechanical engineering, where you can take ME 199, a class that gives you course credit for being on the team. That's awesome, and it's really helpful because we do put a lot of time into the team. It kind of like, helps us carry the course load a little bit better, because we're putting so much time into this team. Um, so for those students, they have like a little bit of higher expectations, but I think the thing we pride ourselves on on our team is that we make sure that anyone who's really wants to get involved will have an opportunity, no matter what their time commitment ability is. For me, my freshman year, I had a part time job that was like 25 hours a week, and that just took up a lot of time with freshman year classes, but I was still able to be involved in the team and make time to go and do things and help out and contribute. Now I'm Captain. There's a lot of good ways that you can get involved with it that doesn't have to be the structure that we have.

Maddie Rice  
You're a real hustler. No, you're really hustling our here.

Veronica Holloway  
Oh, yeah. And also we just we got out at the E night, quad day sort of cycle so I'm ready to sell this team to anybody. I'm well practiced

Maddie Rice  
 That's awsome. I mean I'm sold so yeah. I changed my major right now. 

Veronica Holloway  
You don't even have to if you wanted to be on the team. We've got a business sub team so we're trying to build that Instagram following

Maddie Rice  
you really are selling it.  That's awesome. Well, definitely if people are interested, we'll definitely put that social and contact stuff in the description of this episode and it'll probably be on our social as well. But okay, so give me like just a typical day in your life. And I want I want to be there. Give me a little fun details. What Color is your bedspread.

Veronica Holloway  
So for me basically I'm... I was a runner in high school, I'm not that good, but it like is a staple of my livelihood now where like I need to be doing something active most days of the week. Days that I don't get up and do something I often like I'm just not productive or like it just like I don't have as positive of an outlook on the day. So pretty much every morning I wake up and try to do something active. Five days a week I run and the other two days I'll go and play soccer. And do something like that. I love soccer. Oh my gosh, I'm just bad at it but I love it. So I go and I play a lot. So every morning I get up and I do something and I like to get up a little bit earlier because I think it like kickstarts your day and I like to be as awake as possible when the sun is up. So I'd rather be up earlier and then go to bed earlier than be late. 

Maddie Rice  
What is what is early to you?

Veronica Holloway  
So I get up at seven.

Maddie Rice  
 Okay so that's normal person early.

Veronica Holloway  
So it's not crazy early yeah. It's like an appropriate early for both school and work. And so I get up and I go running, take a shower, get my breakfast, and then usually have breakfast while getting out the door because I find I am just so not productive at my apartment. 

Maddie Rice  
What is it about the apartment? 

Veronica Holloway  
Yeah dive into the YouTube videos I'm too comfortable.

Maddie Rice  
What do you watch on YouTube?

Veronica Holloway  
I, it's all shameful, like one portion of it, I'm obsessed with the Premier League. So I watch Premier League highlights a lot. But then there's also like, I like keeping up with like Bachelor Nation stuff. I don't want to watch the episodes so I watch like, like the highlight reels. Because like the episodes are like two hours. That is not the sort of commitment I want to make to any type of show

Maddie Rice  
I don't have that the attention span.I probably do have the time I just

Veronica Holloway  
Every time.... Like ever since I've gotten into college, it's been like hard for me to ever, justify sitting down, unless it's like with friends, sitting down like watching like a movie or a lot of TV, because it just feels like I could be doing things more efficiently. But then YouTube is dangerous because the videos are like five minutes long. I also have this weird like, obsession with British humor. So get really like deep into like weird clip compilations from their talk shows and stuff like that. 

Maddie Rice  
That's so funny. Like a Graham Norton rabbit hole?

Veronica Holloway  
Yes, absolutely. Graham Norton is like one of the best talk show hosts. I think he should like teach a master class or something. I should call him up.

Maddie Rice  
Has he?

Veronica Holloway  
 No, I don't think so. But that shouldn't begin. I know Conan started podcasting.

Maddie Rice  
 Yeah, he's great. He's my favorite person I know.

Veronica Holloway  
 He's really great. 

Maddie Rice  
Well, I don't know him personally 

Veronica Holloway  
But we can claim that. No and that's the British talk show stuff is I think the biggest gem. But also when things are like really tough and I want some like real trash TV, I'll get into like anything Gordon Ramsay to like hilarious Kitchen Nightmares. You know? 

Maddie Rice  
Too much garlic.

Veronica Holloway  
Yeah, I don't I don't even know why because like usually I'm very anti confrontation and he just yells at people. But his reactions to things are so over the top and insane that somehow it's stress relieving which is like, I need to go back and get a psych major to understand why that is.

Maddie Rice  
Maybe you live vicariously through him getting his agression out.

Veronica Holloway  
Yeah, maybe that's it or like, maybe it's just the fact that he is like, absolutely no shame in expressing whatever he wants that I'm like, empowered by that. Who knows? We'll figure it out. 

Maddie Rice  
That's the next episode.

Veronica Holloway  
 We just turn those into understanding my YouTube choices. Yeah, so I have to get out of my home. Otherwise I'm going to do that. And so I get my coffee and my bagel usually. I'm really like boring where I'll have the same thing for breakfast every day. 

Maddie Rice  
If it's not broke, why would you fix it? 

Veronica Holloway  
Here's the thing. I'm not trying to like make anything. Like for me if there's something that I can put in the toaster and put some peanut butter on like we're good. 

Maddie Rice  
Life hack: I skipped the putting peanut butter on things and I just eat a little cup of peanut butter.

Veronica Holloway  
Oh, that's good.

Maddie Rice  
They make those to-go cup peanut butters. I put one in my backpack.

Veronica Holloway  
I used to know someone who would bring a full jar of peanut butter with them everywhere they went so they just had that option.

Maddie Rice  
That's something you could do. You might take a toll socially. But you know, that's it. You gotta risk it for the biscuit, or peanut butter.

Veronica Holloway  
Risk it for the buiscut. I need to write that down.

Maddie Rice  
That's a good one.

Veronica Holloway  
So I go to MEL usually. So a couple days a week I work for the MechSE communications office. So that's usually like that's where I'm headed like about half the time in the morning. Otherwise I go to MEL which is the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory. It's like my favorite place on campus. And also my least favorite because all my friends and I like kind of do homework there. And it's a really great community and everyone's really nice. But then also like there's those moments of like lab reports that I spent a lot of time on. But I think mostly it's a positive experience. And I like to spread out a lot when I do work, so they got a lot of tables there, so I usually claim one. It's like the appropriate level of like, quiet and loud for me to concentrate well.

Maddie Rice  
Perfect. Okay, cool.

Veronica Holloway  
Now that I'm aged, I have less class that I go to. Just like our... Like when you get to like the higher level classes there's more of an expectation to do work outside of class than class.

Maddie Rice  
Okay I feel like that is kind of how my major works too. I'm in media studies and I think it becomes more project and like, you doing things and applying knowledge outside of the classroom. Is that how is that your classes are?

Veronica Holloway  
I think it's like a natural progression of less hand holding almost where they're like, kind of like slowly releasing you. Like it's almost like when you're learning how to ride a bike, and they start like holding on less. That's basically what they're doing.

Maddie Rice  
 And eventually, you look back and you're like, oh, man, I want to go back. Now they know I know how to ride this bike.

Veronica Holloway  
I can't have the training wheels anymore!

Maddie Rice  
Yeah, but it's also kind of freeing probably.

Veronica Holloway  
It's good too because, you know, especially like, a lot of people in my major are like busy and involved a lot of different things. So you want to be able to, like balance when you're working is going into what. When your schedule is more open and you're in class less you're able to say like, 'Okay, this the time every week I'm working on only this class. This is the time that I can work on this job or this.'

Maddie Rice  
Kind of like kind of compartmentalize your time a little bit. 

Veronica Holloway  
Yeah. And like another job that I have is I work for an education professor and I do some like research for her, but that's like all on my own time. So having that extra space where I'm in class less it opens up time where I can do that work that's not like explicitly scheduled for me. 

Maddie Rice  
So, all right, well, I'm a townie. I'm from Champaign. I grew up here, so I'm always curious to find out what other students think of Champaign when they come here. Is this like a city to you? Is it boring? Is it just corn?

Veronica Holloway  
See here's the thing, I don't really remember what my initial reactions were early on. I think something to preface, with I grew up in Mount Prospect which is a suburb of Chicago. So Mount Prospect was not exciting because all the exciting stuff was in Chicago and I hope nobody from Mount Prospect hates me for saying that. We did have an American Idol winner. 

Maddie Rice  
No way. 

Veronica Holloway  
Yeah, Lee Dewyze. Look him up. 

Maddie Rice  
What year was that do you think?

Veronica Holloway  
Maybe 2007

Maddie Rice  
 The peak of American Idol! 

Veronica Holloway  
Truly, I mean everybody, all the original judges were still on there, so I take that as a pretty big win and Paula, Simon and Randy the guy who was always calling people dog and stuff.

Maddie Rice  
Yeah. Did you ever watch iCarly?

Veronica Holloway  
Yes I do. It was amazing. 

Maddie Rice  
That episode with the fragrance. 

Veronica Holloway  
iCarly was underrated.

Maddie Rice  
I would probably still watch it if it were available to me. 

Veronica Holloway  
I have tried. It does lose a little bit of it's effect. 

Maddie Rice  
Doesn't hold up?

Veronica Holloway  
 Because you know, when you're like you were that age you were like 'I would love to do a TV show like that. And then you watch it and you're like, I don't think anyone would watch this TV show, nor would I have the confidence to do whatever they did. 

Maddie Rice  
But are we doing that now?

Veronica Holloway  
Basically living the dream? Yes. But that's why I'm so excited to be on here. This is basically iCarly but in podcast.

Maddie Rice  
But there's no random dancing because they can't see us.

Veronica Holloway  
Yeah, well, maybe there is random dancing. They just won't know.

Maddie Rice  
Yeah, maybe there was random dancing this whole time. No one would know. 

Veronica Holloway  
That would be really impressive because I don't feel like we're showing that we're exherting that much energy.

Maddie Rice  
Our voices are way too stable for that.

Veronica Holloway  
Or we just have really good cardio. You never know

Maddie Rice  
 I mean, you run all the time. We both played soccer. Don't rule it out.

Veronica Holloway  
We're giving them a lot of clues that we're actually dancing this entire time.

Maddie Rice  
We will let them be the judges of what's real and what's not.

Veronica Holloway  
So Mount Prospect, like it's not that boring, but it's not like crazy exciting, but I was close enough to Chicago that I had like bit of that. What I appreciate about Champaign-Urbana like the entire like stretch of it, like I would say, I don't venture much outside of the downtown's of each, so it's like campus and both downtown's. What I realized is because there's not that, like, there's not a whole lot around it, it's not like the suburbs where everything's like, mushed together.  When you're driving outside of Chicago, you don't get patches of not suburb. It's just all patches of suburbs pretty much until Wisconsin. It's all a suburb, like, because now my dad moved to like really close to the border. And you can drive all the way to Chicago and just be in suburbs the entire time. So everything is really close knit and you can easily get in and out of the city, right.

Maddie Rice  
That's kind of how campus works I feel like.

Veronica Holloway  
But the good thing about campus is, I think, because it's kind of... Here it's almost like it's the big city of the area where if people were living around it, this is where you come to have those exciting special experiences. So I feel like people once you like know where to look, and you know how to get like to downtown Champaign or to downtown Urbana, you understand that there's a lot of cool stuff going on. And like Urbana, you could easily go to downtown Urbana any Friday night and see live music play pretty much. Or like the escape rooms here are amazing. Like, there's a lot of really great stuff to do on this campus. And I think anybody, even if you're from like, LA, or New York, or anywhere around the United States, I think there's a lot of cool stuff that you can do, while still getting that awesome, like big 10 experience of being on campus that is overlooked just by people not trying hard enough to find stuff. So another thing is I grew up going to the University of Iowa campus. So I grew up with like college being the image of like the big 10 and that sort of thing. So coming to U of I just felt right for college, if that makes sense. It like felt like it met what my expectations were but it also like with that cool element of Champaign Urbana being kind of like the mecca of like, culture in the area, like, gave it a little extra spice.

Maddie Rice  
That's so nice to hear

Veronica Holloway  
Like my freshman year Smash Mouth was at the Sweet Corn Fest.

Maddie Rice  
 Love that. Hey now you're an Rock Star. 

Veronica Holloway  
All star. You were so close. 

Maddie Rice  
Ugh. That's the name of the song!

Veronica Holloway  
I think they say Rockstar too, right?

Maddie Rice  
 I think that's like verse two.

Veronica Holloway  
I'll take it. 

Maddie Rice  
Yeah, I'm not wrong. I just wasn't at the right time.

Veronica Holloway  
We're just out of sync. No, no, that's fine. 

Maddie Rice  
I'm doing great. We've covered all the bases. Yeah, all the verses. Okay, so that's so nice to hear. I appreciate that. I really cherish Champaign. 

Veronica Holloway  
I really like it here. Yes. What's cool about a big campus, right, is you can make it as big as you want it to be. And that's the thing that I think people don't like... I basically live on Bardeen Quad, like the engineering part, so a lot of times that I can make the campus really small. But every day, I run around campus, and I can get like four miles out of it.

Maddie Rice  
A flex 

Veronica Holloway  
Yes, sorry, guys. But for me, I think what's so impressive is if you wanted the big school vibe, you can easily get that. But if you want a small school vibe, you can get that as well.

Maddie Rice  
It's really what you make it. It's literally like motto of a of a college campus. It's like, Wow, what a great opportunity.

Veronica Holloway  
Yeah, I agree

Maddie Rice  
You get to explore non stop for as long as you can.

Veronica Holloway  
And build your own experience. That was the coolest part.

Maddie Rice  
We're both seniors this year and our experiences are so, so different, but they're I think they're equally as fruitful and I think they're just tailored so well to, it sounds like both our personalities. I'm a big trial and error person also. So I tried a few things before I found what worked for me. Do you think that like you have the opportunity to same with like your classes and RSOs in Grainger College of Engineering?

Veronica Holloway  
I definitely think so. I think the biggest thing for me that I think people need to know coming in is or even  just knowing about like, the depth of this college itself is with the RSO's, with the options for different electives, you can really make your own experience and you can also decide that you don't like things like

Maddie Rice  
You're allowed to be bad at stuff.

Veronica Holloway  
Yeah. And here's the thing. I'm all in on Baja. I have been. It really worked out that it was what I wanted to do when I joined. But I know plenty of people who try it, and they find a better place for them in something like ASME, which is the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Or, robotics or the formula team, ormy friend has an RSO called Alma's Talking Dogs and it's so cool. I think it's a it's also because the more you get into engineering as a major, right, the more you see that is in everything we do. And because of that, inherently, it allows you to really dictate what you want to do with it. So I think, for me, all my experiences here and all the internships that I've gotten, because of the work that I've done at the school, have given me the best insight into what I like doing with engineering, whereas it's like a very open thing, which could be intimidating. But if you are willing to try things, it's very easy to find something that you can be really motivated about. So I think that's the best part.

Maddie Rice  
Well, I can get behind that, no problem. Wow, that sounds very is it too corny to say empowering?

Veronica Holloway  
No, I don't think so. And maybe maybe our listeners would would laugh at it. I think one thing that I always think of is sometimes cliches sound cliche because they truly are that and people say it enough. 

Maddie Rice  
And it's like over done. 

Veronica Holloway  
But I think the confidence that an engineering background gives you to be able to tackle challenges, it's hugely empowering. And it lets you know that whatever your values are, whatever your interests are, this education is going to allow you to somehow pursue those.

Maddie Rice  
So Wow, it's cool. Definitely not a big enough word.

Veronica Holloway  
But my vocabulary is very small. Yes.

Maddie Rice  
Okay, well, speaking of vocabulary, so this podcast is called Engineering Is blank. And I'm trying to fill that blank. That's the whole point of this thing. So every episode I'm going to be, it's up to you to help me define it. I'm trying to figure out what to put in that blank. So if you were to define engineering and just one word, or maybe like a really short phrase, what do you think it would be at this point in your journey? 

Veronica Holloway  
Enabling.

Maddie Rice  
Enabling? Engineering is enabling

Veronica Holloway  
And I know that sounds very similar to empowering but I think it has a different element of it. We're empowering it makes you believe in yourself, but enabling is giving you everything you need to do what you are passionate about, and that's why I think that engineering is enabling 

Maddie Rice  
Wow. Engineering is enabling Wow, we have our  first definition. 

Veronica Holloway  
I'm, man, I'm so excited that I was able to define this entire college. Everybody else has to think of a  different word than I did.

Maddie Rice  
Once we get later on the episodes, maybe they'll be scrambling. 

Veronica Holloway  
Bring up the source just flip through it.

Maddie Rice  
Wow. Okay. I feel like I'm understanding the world of STEM a little bit more. So I guess kind of signing off I do want to just asked you what do you think is like a like your biggest goal this year? It's your to senior year.

Veronica Holloway  
I'm sorry to, to fall into my own biases again. But

Maddie Rice  
Bring it on. Yeah,

Veronica Holloway  
I really love the Baja team and I want to see us get top 2. We haven't done it in a little while. And I think our team has developed a lot. We've grown in membership by like, something like three times as many people are on the team as when I joined as a freshman, and everyone really cares. So I think we have a good team, we've got great engineers, and I think we can we can really make something happen. We want to represent our school.

Maddie Rice  
Wow. Oh my god. We're sure we're all, everyone listening is rooting for you yeah I'm super sold.

Veronica Holloway  
Check out the Instagram. Keep up with us. We will show you what's going on and everything 

Maddie Rice  
Oh my gosh I will smash that follow button. Wow this has been so, dare I say it and I will like

Veronica Holloway  
Oh my gosh like you planned it

Maddie Rice  
It's like we formatted a whole podcast episode around just that line

Veronica Holloway  
It's not just like they caught us having a conversation.

Maddie Rice  
Oh my gosh Veronica there's a microphone on this table recording this very casual conversation.

Veronica Holloway  
I would hate for them to put it up on some sort of website.

Maddie Rice  
And share it, and subscribe, and rate it on Apple Podcasts. 

Veronica Holloway  
And keep listening to all the other cool people. 

Maddie Rice  
And follow us on Instagram. How embarsassing would that be.

Veronica Holloway  
Would hate people to do that. 

Maddie Rice  
 Oh man. Alright guys. Well thanks so much for listening to this very first pilot, maiden voyage episode of Engineering Is. you can catch us every Friday. And while you're at it, check out the other podcast on our network. It's called the Illinois innovators and it's with Mike Koon. You can catch us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at U of I Grainger can Yeah, I'll see you guys next time.

Veronica Holloway  
Bye.

Maddie Rice  
Bye