Momgineer Introduction

I am a Mom. I am an Engineer. When asked "What does an Engineer do?" the answer that follows is usually something like, "Engineers use scientific and mathematical theories/concepts to solve problems and improve the quality of life." Well, what does a Mom do? Solve problems and improve the quality of life. Therefore, since the similarity between the two are so great, we can combine the two and get "Momgineering". I don't turn off engineering to be a Mom and I couldn't stop being a Mom even if I tried. So, I have decided to embrace and combine these two major components of who I am.

More about me:
I am a currently full time home managing while in graduate school for engineering part time. I have been told several times that I should blog about my experiences, but time and energy have been pretty scarce resources in my environment these days. I decided that if this was ever going to happen, I better just dive right in. Pick a Saturday night when I didn't feel like doing the reading for my class and just blog! I was also encouraged by a wise friend when we were having a discussion about a dissertation that I will eventually write that I should see that dissertation as my "first work" as opposed to my "life work"- as the document is the beginning of my career writing as a professor. She also reminded me that the best dissertation is a "done dissertation!" That said, I am applying that to this blog and getting it done.

Even more about me...the Mom part:
I am the mother of three BEAUTIFUL children who I will refer to as the Schooler, the Preschooler, and the Baby :-). I have a wonderful husband who has supported me in my school endeavors while working full time and pursuing his own degrees. We have been married for about 6.75 years (see, I just can't help myself!) and so far still doing well. I have found that the best training I have had for being both an engineer on the job and an engineer in the classroom came from my family life. Truly, there is no job on the planet that is tougher than Motherhood.

Even more about me...the Engineer part:
I have an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering and I am working on my graduate degrees in Industrial and Systems Engineering. I chose my undergraduate program because I am a math junkie and I was told that this was the discipline with the "most math". I was more careful about the decision with my graduate degree and I truly believe that Industrial Engineering is the right fit for me. I have truly enjoyed the content in all the classes I have taken. I am still in the early stages of a PhD process so I am trying to find an area of research to run with. My biggest personal goal is to find a topic that is directly relevant and beneficial to some organization(s).

Introduction Summary:
My plan (because I always have a plan...) is to apply the class topics to family life and blog about that. The course I am currently taking is a System Dynamics class where we are modeling system dynamics in order to see what adjustments might need to be made to a system for an organization to function better. Sounds pretty exciting, I know! I am about a third of the way through my class and I already have several things to post. I hope to share a mix of humorous, yet insightful blog entries. Thanks for reading!