• June 23, 2015

    Student Spotlight: Ryan Hughes

    Ryan Hughes

    Ryan Hughes, PacTrans Fellow

    Ryan Hughes is one of four PacTrans Fellows for this 2014-15 academic year. As he nears the completion of his Master of Science in Civil Engineering, we spoke with Ryan to learn more about his time and involvement with PacTrans.

     

     

     

     

     

    Why did you choose to enroll in this program?

    I chose to enroll in the PacTrans program here at UW because it aligned really well with my career goals. The PacTrans program, which would allow me to take more courses and have an internship getting real work experience at the same time, was really appealing to me as someone looking for just a master’s degree that would prepare me more for the workforce directly. The fact that I could do it in one year and have it funded was also very appealing.

    I have tried to tailor my studies more toward transportation planning and with a mix of urban planning and public policy. Those are things that really interest me and it seemed like the coursework here at UW was more aligned with those fields. I’ve taken two courses in the Evans School of Public Affairs, which I really enjoyed, one on science policy and one on economic development for communities.

    Tell us about your experience as a PacTrans fellow.

    It’s been a whirlwind, only nine months in and I’m almost finished. I think what stands out the most with me is my experience with my peers and classmates. It’s very collaborative and supportive, so a lot of working together, and hanging out after class and on the weekends, and doing social events, formal and informal with each other.

    As a PacTrans student, I kind of felt it my responsibility to be aware of what’s going in the region in terms of transportation. I went to most of the PacTrans seminars that were great for understanding research or listening to hot topics. Also talking to people at work about transportation issues in Seattle, and discussing with my peers and professor all the different issues of the region, or even expanded nationally what’s going in transportation.

    You’ve worked while completing the program. What kind of work are you doing?

    I am a transportation planning and engineering intern with a firm called Fehr and Peers. It’s a transportation consulting firm and our office focuses on long-range planning for local communities and cities, municipalities, counties, and whatnot. My work there has been also various, but I’ve done a lot of mapping work in ArcGIS and supporting those long-range plans with visualization of our different data and graphics. I have worked in transportation modelling software to help with long range modelling for the region. I’ve also gotten a lot of experience writing because I’ve been able to help draft some of those long range transportation plans.

    Have you been involved with other projects in the program?

    My faculty advisor is Don MacKenzie, and although I’m a PacTrans professional master’s student, he included me in his research group early on, which is really valuable for me. I was able to, and still do, attend his research group meetings, which were bi-weekly and would discuss various research topics they were looking at. I could present my own research work challenges to them and try and sort those out.

    What classes, experiences, or lessons learned in the program have had the most impact on you.

    One thing I’m taking away is that we have an enormity of transportation issues to solve in the future and they’re only getting bigger and more complex, but there are a lot of different ways I can come at those problems. I think I have a much better understanding of the problems that are out there, and how we as individuals, engineers, and as societies and cities are going to best attack those problems.

    What sort of opportunities have opened up as a result of this program and PacTrans?

    Very early on, even before I had gotten here, I was looking for my internship, and I had two opportunities open up for me the summer before I started here because of PacTrans.

    I do have a job offer now starting next fall, and I know a big part of that offer was the PacTrans program and the firm recognized the program as being very aligned with what they want to see in an engineer, as a program offering internship experience and extensive course, rather than focused solely on research.