Underwriters Laboratories
Since graduating from MSOE, I have been employed by Underwriters Laboratories
Inc. (UL), where I currently am a project engineer working on a short-
term assignment in the United Kingdom.
The motto for UL is "Working for a Safer World" – this is basically what I do every day. My job is to make sure that medical equipment that carries the UL mark is safe.
I sometimes tell people that I blow things up for a living – this is not far from the truth. At UL we test medical products to the requirements listed in UL/IEC 60601-1; we look specifically for fire, mechanical or electric shock hazards. For certain types of products (infusion pumps for example) we also check that the products perform as the manufacturer says.
Some of the things that make my job fun are:
- Working with a wide variety of equipment types and manufacturers (from dental curing lights to MRI Systems)
- Seeing and working with new technology before it hits the market
- Interfacing with designers, manufacturers and users around the world
My job requires quite a bit of on-the-job training. I started out learning how to perform all the safety tests, and then moved on to learning how to apply the tests and requirements to actual equipment. To keep up with the changing technology we always are developing new test procedures and working with more and more complex equipment.
This is a fast paced job; we often are the last stop for manufacturers before their products hit the market so they tend to encourage us to work faster all the time. It is essential to have good people and time management skills to get the job done on time and properly.
At the end of the day I can go home with the knowledge that a small part of someone’s world will be safer because of the work I am doing.
There has never been a doubt that MSOE’s BE program was the right choice for me.
Biomedical Engineering currently is one of the fastest-growing engineering fields. I always was being groomed as an engineer (my father is an electrical engineer) but held a special interest in biology and physiology in school.
When I began looking into what to do with my life after high school, I stumbled upon the field of biomedical engineering. After looking at the course layout for a few different colleges, I decided to visit MSOE because it offered the widest variety of subjects on the biomedical engineering plan. It was the visit to MSOE that sold me!
Walking into the BE lab and seeing the students working on real-life problems, and finding solutions that could make peoples lives better, was all I needed to make my choice. It did not hurt that MSOE was only about an hour drive from home, and that I received a scholarship. You could say that I chose MSOE for the senior design process – and the possibilities that it held. (At the time MSOE was the only school I found with a four year senior design process).
With the BE program there is no slow start. We jumped in with 18 credit hours the first trimester, and there always was enough work to keep us busy – but not too much to get done on time. A big plus for me was the lab time; I am the kind of person who likes to tinker – and there was plenty of time for that. We got a lot of hands-on experience at MSOE that have been very valuable to me in my current career. The two most important things I learned from MSOE are the importance of time management and how to work in a team.
My education at MSOE has not provided me with all the tools that I need
to work in my current job, but it has given me the ability to acquire
those tools when I need them.
| For information about MSOE's B.S. in Biomedical Engineering program, contact interim program director Dr. Charles Tritt at (414) 277-7421. |