Engineering is not the Same in Every Country

Early on in my semester abroad in Christchurch, New Zealand, I didn’t know what to say when asked why I chose the country over other programs. I would usually ramble about just wanting to get far away from home and living some place else I hadn’t been to before. I had a bunch of little reasons that led me to being interested in the country and didn’t know which one to delve into. Over time however, the learning experiences I had helped me combine my interests and understand why this program was such a good fit for me. 

At my home school Santa Clara University, I chose to major in civil engineering because it seemed like a clear path to incorporating problem solving into my passion for environmental justice. When I studied abroad, I was able to get involved with both of these aspects in my field and gain perspectives on them that I would not have heard in the United States.

I took two engineering classes at the University of Canterbury, as well as a geology class that is also required for my major, and a Maori class for a cultures credit. At first I was slightly disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to take electives while abroad. I wasn’t particularly interested in classes that I would already have to take at my home university anyway. My attitude changed as I realized how much the courses I was in were designed to teach about engineering or geology in New Zealand.

The engineering course in which I primarily noticed this was called Behavior and Design of Structures. In this class I was presented with problems, which include a set of demands that are relatively straightforward. The challenge was looking up the proper codes and ensuring my design followed each constraint of the code. Many engineering classes in the United States give students this same expectation, but codes are different in every country. It was really interesting to use the New Zealand Standards for this class, especially since the professors incorporated how the law may differ in other countries into their lectures. Although I have now gotten used to a system that is hardly used in the United States, I am grateful that I know how to do it another way.

My geology class also gave me a wealth of knowledge about problem solving regarding the environment in New Zealand. The first half of the course focused on environmental systems thinking and wicked problems. It touched on global issues but also covered a variety of national sustainability concerns. The second half was about disasters and the causes, risks, exposure, mediation, and recovery associated with each. I learned about tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes, and landslides. All of these topics are important and all have affected New Zealand, but earthquakes was the one that was discussed most heavily. 

Earthquakes are such a concern in the country, and especially at the university I was attending because Christchurch experienced two devastating earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 and the city has since changed completely. To experience what a geologist may do for work, our class was assigned a six hour workshop in which we thoroughly mapped out all of the damage of a future earthquake and created response plans. Even earthquake engineering techniques that are used for risk reduction were included in the lectures, which connected two of my classes. The course had been building up to the ideas of resistance and resilience, which helped me to synthesize the most valuable information I learned in all of my classes. Some of my most powerful community experiences abroad came from problem solving with others, and I was able to leave with so much more perspective to consider in my future studies and career.