Massachusetts Turnpike Authority Ashley Forkey, S.M.ASCE, is a senior from South Florida studying civil engineering at Tufts University. She is focused on geotechnical engineering and is also pursuing a minor in engineering management. She has gained research and internship experience in geotechnical engineering along with experience in structural engineering and computer-aided design.
Forkey has been involved in ASCE throughout her undergraduate years. She is passionate about using engineering to support resilient communities and bridging the gap between student experience and professional practice.
In her column, An Undergraduate's View, Forkey documents her experience as an ASCE student member navigating her civil engineering studies.
An astronaut’s dream is to land on the moon. What is a civil engineer’s dream? For a bunch of my professors, maybe the Big Dig. That would make sense.
I don’t know what my “Big Dig” is. I think if anyone knew that, then we’d all know without the shadow of a doubt which discipline of civil engineering we would want to go into. I got the chance to work at HNTB this past summer and gain some hands-on experience learning about and working on the Cape Cod Bridge replacement. This is the closest I have come to a “Big Dig” of my own. Given my mere 21 years of living, I am very happy with this.
Why I bring this up is that I’ve been thinking about Buzz Aldrin. A friend of mine took a class and learned about how landing on the moon – his lifelong goal – led to restlessness, not fulfillment. He achieved his dream and, with nothing left to work toward, experienced a downward mental spiral. After achieving the dream he had spent his entire life pursuing, he struggled with the absence of another goal of equal magnitude. He had worked, the way most engineers do, toward something much larger than himself. Once accomplished, his mind struggled to adjust. The dopamine had come from the work itself, not from the reward. As cliche as it is, the journey matters more than the destination.
Anyway, when I take an exam, I study all week, and I complain about studying even though a very large part of me enjoys it and finds fulfillment in the process. When I get my grade back, I react predictably: if it is good, I am satisfied; if it is bad, I am disappointed or a little annoyed. Regardless, the learning process matters more. Even if I am not assessed on something I studied, I enjoy the process of learning.
Of course, I prefer being assessed on what I studied. However, I think this enjoyment is reflected in my very small reactions to grades themselves. Of course, if the grade is that bad, I care a lot – don’t get me wrong. But I have stronger feelings for studying than for the grade itself. I know when I know it and I know when I don’t, regardless of my grade. I know when I didn’t have enough time or energy to give an assignment what it warranted, and I know when I did.
I relate to the lack of contentment Aldrin described. When one exam is done, my mind shifts to the next one instantaneously, or to the next application, project, or task. There is rarely a moment of overwhelming fulfillment. The stronger sense of satisfaction seems tied to the process rather than the outcome.
For Aldrin, this disconnect between loving the pursuit and struggling to enjoy the result led to alcoholism, depression, and other challenges. It raises an interesting question: what happens when we all eventually reach our own Big Dig? What happens when we accomplish the goal we have been working years, if not our entire lives, to achieve? Is it healthier to immediately pursue a new one and give that restlessness a direction and a purpose? Or is that simply a coping mechanism, a way to avoid confronting the possibility that, as people, we are never fully satisfied with what we have achieved?
This fall, I will begin pursuing my master’s degree. Will I feel fulfilled when I start it, or will I immediately want something more? And when we graduate, will we all feel slightly underwhelmed? Perhaps students who pursue graduate school find comfort not only in continued learning but also in the familiarity of the routine.
I then took a step back. I should be comparing apples to apples. Civil engineers are not astronauts. Astronauts are not civil engineers. Maybe we do not have one singular moon landing equivalent. Maybe there is no single Big Dig.
I think a certain type of person is drawn to civil engineering because they like the process. Civil engineering attracts people who are not searching for one defining moment, but for many smaller ones: a bridge replaced, a station constructed. These large structures are often taken for granted, yet they quietly provide the order and stability that society depends on to function.
All together, these small contributions that most people think are boring create something far greater. Not everyone walks on the moon, but everyone walks on Earth. They walk on sidewalks designed by urban planners, cross bridges built by civil engineers, and enter buildings made possible by structural design.
Civil engineers quietly build the framework of society. If that is the case, then perhaps our goal is not a single extraordinary and defining moment, but a lifetime spent creating a society worth immortalizing.
Maybe that is why the work itself matters so much. There will always be another bridge to repair, another station to design, another system to improve. Civil engineering is not defined by a singular triumphant moment, but by a continuous effort to make the world around it function a little better than it did before. In that sense, the dream is never finished. Perhaps that is what makes it so fulfilling.
