Student Reflective Essay on Civil Engineering Work Experience

This reflective essay delves into a civil engineering student's work experience, analyzing critical incidents through the lens of the Ullman model. The essay explores three key areas: ethical conduct and professional accountability, effective communication in both professional and lay domains, and leadership and teamwork. The student recounts specific incidents, detailing their feelings, personal beliefs, recognized difficulties, and the perspectives gained. The analysis includes reflections on a broken stormwater pipe, communication challenges with a Chinese client, and leading team meetings. The student identifies lessons learned and outlines future intentions for professional development, emphasizing the importance of ethical decision-making, effective cross-cultural communication, and the development of leadership and teamwork skills. The conclusion summarizes the learning experiences and highlights the student's commitment to continuous self-improvement and professional integrity.

REFLECTIVE ESSAY ON ENGINEERING WORK EXPERINCE
Student Name:
Student Number:
Date:
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction.........................................................................................................................3
2. Reflective Analysis................................................................................................................3
2.1 Ethical conduct and professional accountability..............................................................3
2.2 Effective communication in professional and lay domains..............................................5
2.3 Leadership and Teamwork...............................................................................................6
3. Conclusion..........................................................................................................................8
4. References...........................................................................................................................9
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1. Introduction
Reflection analysis is crucial in the civil engineering profession. As a construction engineer
development of this reflective experience will enable me to document the key aspects
regarding this profession, including ethical conduct and professional accountability, effective
communication in professional and lay domains and leadership and teamwork. In order to
analyse the reflective experience, I have adopted the Ullman model of reflection (Daly,
Adams, and Bodner, 2012). It allows conducting a detailed and in-depth reflation from the
lowest levels. While undertaking the varied types of reflection a critical incident has been
evaluated as per Fook and Gardner (Felder, Brent, and Prince, 2011, p 101).
2. Reflective Analysis
2.1 Ethical conduct and professional accountability
While working as a professional engineer, it is extremely important to adopt ethical conduct
and professional accountability. Applying Ullman’s model as below;
i) Recounting or describing by personal experience, while working as a trainee engineer, I
experienced a critical incident as the incidence was critical for my professional learning. As a
construction engineer while (Week 12 Reflection 12/11/2018) I noticed parallel to the storm
water bit a broken pit sunk to the ground that could easily cause harm from the broken
stormwater pipe underneath (Cunningham, and Carlsen, 2014, p 201). This incident took
place in Stage 1 and the incident was highly critical in nature.
ii) Feelings: This critical incident I was experiencing for the first time and I was frustrated by
thinking of the ways to repair the situation and to prevent harm. I became extremely cautious
regarding the damage the incident can cause to the residents living. Being a Trainee Engineer
and working in the Civil and Built team for Residential Property Development, it was my key
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responsibility to have an ethical conduct and professional accountability to report the incident
immediately to my supervisor (Gould, and Taylor, 2017, 11). The matter being of utmost
importance, I felt a sense of ethical judgement in me that required me to report the incident
immediately.
iii) Personal belief: Though there were a number of Trainee Engineers working with me, but
no one reported the incident. It is my personal belief that if I face such a critical incident in
my professional career, I need to immediate take immediate actions to see to it that it gets
repaired and no harm is caused due to it. Hence my personal professional code of conduct is
to bring into the forefront any such incident and manage the harm that might arise (Adams,
Daly, Mann, and Dall'Alba, 2011, p 601). I have gained knowledge from my theoretical
learning that engineers need to bear some professional conduct and ethical codes to prevent
greater harm being caused to the society in general. Ever since this type of learning, it has
become my personal belief also.
iv) Recognizing difficulties: The critical incident faced by me had certain difficulties
associated with it before it gets resolved. The problem I identified was to develop
constructive criticism for my decision making and also to undertake safe actions or renewals
of the assets (Walther, Kellam, Sochacka, and Radcliffe, 2011, p 734). There was need to
renew maintenance, which had to be brought about to the forefront prior to resolving the
matter at hand. This might create difficulties as there is significant costs included with
renewal of maintenance.
v) Perspective: The critical incident has brought about the perspective of ethicality and
professional conduct which has been brought about to the forefront. The most crucial
perspective that needs my consideration for this topic includes ethical conduct and
professional accountability.
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vi) Lessons learnt and future intentions: After evaluation of this situation I decided that it is
crucial to report such incidents and also take care of them first. According to my personal
beliefs I would conduct repairing even before discussing maintenance. In my future also my
aim will be to prevent harm first, before considering any other aspects. My lesson learnt from
this experience is that I have capability to make decisions regarding ethical conduct and
professional accountability from any instance.
2.2 Effective communication in professional and lay domains
In this second reflective analysis, I will consider the domain of effective communication in
professional and lay domains. I will undertake this evaluation from Week -20 Reflection
19/01/2019 Stage 3.
i) Description of the experience: My job as a construction engineer in varied projects
requires continues problem solving. In this current reflection I will describe the incidence
where there was some issues with the elevator with faulty motors. According to my
professional judgement, I suggested replacing the entire faulty elevator set by explaining the
cost benefits associated with the new installation. However, the basis on which my
professional recommendations would be accepted depended upon my capabilities to
communicate in an effective manner.
ii) Feelings: My feelings from this incidence was anxiety as we were dealing with an
extremely important corporate client (Matsuo, 2012, p 611). I was anxious whether I could
communicate effectively while giving presentation as the client was Chinese, though he
understood English.
iii) Personal belief: My personal belief is that if communication is undertaken in plain and
simple English with clear flow of logical ideas then it can be effective. It is also my personal
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belief that in cross-cultural communications in professional or in lay domains, the basic steps
of communications should be followed, implying communicating message, waiting for
feedback and so on (Buck, Sobiechowska, and Winter, 2013, p 20). Moreover, my
communication has to be assertive in nature to be able to clearly state my objectives to my
client.
iv) Recognizing difficulties: As clearly stated above, my main challenge in effective
communication to my client was that he was Chinese (Lew, and Schmidt, 2011, p 529). I
needed to learn some cross-cultural competencies to be able to effectively present my ideas
and also undertake feedback to determine the effectiveness of my communication. Most
importantly, if my communication was ineffective, we would end up losing the contract and
also the client and the entire responsibility would come upon me.
v) Perspective: While evaluating this instance the social perspective had to be taken under
consideration as we came from different social background. I had to overcome the social
perspective to be able to communicate my thoughts in a clear manner.
vi) Lessons learnt and future intentions: Thankfully I was able to communicate my
objectives and intentions regarding the project well and explain the cost-benefit analysis in a
clear manner. My lesson learnt from this incidence was that knowing regarding interpersonal
communication is highly effective in cross-cultural communication (Eliot, and Turns, 2011, p
642). Hence in my future projects I will undertake thorough learning regarding interpersonal
and intrapersonal communications so as to communicate in an appropriate manner.
2.3 Leadership and Teamwork
Leadership and teamwork is crucial in the engineering profession and this reflection I have
undertaken from my Week 4 Reflection 27/09/2019 from Stage 2.
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i) Description of the experience: In the current incident, I was made responsible for
conducting meeting in a conference room with team members (Moore, Boyd, and Dooley,
2010, p 41). Being a cadet engineer, this was a tremendous responsibility provided to me to
collaborate with team members and conduct the meeting with success. It required tremendous
leadership skills and team work capabilities on my part to be reflected in my capability to
conduct this meeting.
ii) Feelings: The responsibility to conduct meeting as a cadet engineer made me anxious
tremendously (Walther, Sochacka, and Kellam, 2013, p 644). As this was my first meeting
and team work endeavour under my responsibility, I was extremely nervous as well. During
the incident there was a software failure which made me embarrassed a bit as well.
iii) Personal belief: My personal belief is that leadership and team work capabilities develops
from extensive learning and professional experiences. I can easily gain more experience in
this domain by practising in engineering workshops and reward programs. I will need to
undertake learning and knowledge development to apply such skills.
iv) Recognizing difficulties: The primary difficulties that I recognised while undertaking
engineering practice is that I needed to possess practical as well as theoretical knowledge to
guide teams (Nancarrow et al 2013, p 19). While I lacked practical knowledge, I possessed
some theoretical knowledge which I could easily apply.
v) Perspective: My professional perspective as well as social perspective as included in this
incident while undertaking leadership and team work (Turns et al 2014, p 64). I needed to
learn some professional and social theories of leadership and team work to be able to capably
conduct such meetings.
vi) Lessons learnt and future intentions: Lessons learnt from this event was that I did not
posses’ capabilities fully to act as a professional leader or a team personnel. I needed to
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enhance my competencies and skills to be able to be an effective leader. For my future
professional practice, I will undertake learning from various theoretical books and case
studies to be able to direct myself in a better manner.
3. Conclusion
In conclusion, there have been significant learning from this reflective experience developed.
These reflection journals will provide three integral areas of professional expertise that I
would require maintaining in the future also. My course of action in areas where I have not
been effective will be to take corrective actions by means of learning from case studies and
other reflective journals. I will regularly maintain and personal journal of reflection such that
I can become a professional engineer with ethical and professional integrity with abilities to
undertake leadership and communicate in an effective manner.
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4. References
Adams, R.S., Daly, S.R., Mann, L.M. and Dall'Alba, G., 2011. Being a professional: Three
lenses into design thinking, acting, and being. Design Studies, 32(6), pp.588-607.
Buck, A., Sobiechowska, P. and Winter, R., 2013. Professional experience and the
investigative imagination: The art of reflective writing. Routledge.
Cunningham, C.M. and Carlsen, W.S., 2014. Teaching engineering practices. Journal of
Science Teacher Education, 25(2), pp.197-210.
Daly, S.R., Adams, R.S. and Bodner, G.M., 2012. What does it mean to design? A qualitative
investigation of design professionals' experiences. Journal of Engineering Education, 101(2),
pp.187-219.
Eliot, M. and Turns, J., 2011. Constructing professional portfolios: Sense‐making and
professional identity development for engineering undergraduates. Journal of Engineering
Education, 100(4), pp.630-654.
Felder, R.M., Brent, R. and Prince, M.J., 2011. Engineering instructional development:
Programs, best practices, and recommendations. Journal of Engineering Education, 100(1),
pp.89-122.
Gould, N. and Taylor, I., 2017. Reflective learning for social work: research, theory and
practice. Routledge.
Lew, M.D. and Schmidt, H.G., 2011. Self-reflection and academic performance: is there a
relationship?. Advances in Health Sciences Education, 16(4), p.529.
Matsuo, M., 2012. Leadership of learning and reflective practice: An exploratory study of
nursing managers. Management Learning, 43(5), pp.609-623.
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Moore, C., Boyd, B.L. and Dooley, K.E., 2010. The effects of experiential learning with an
emphasis on reflective writing on deep-level processing of leadership students. Journal of
Leadership Education, 9(1), pp.36-52.
Nancarrow, S.A., Booth, A., Ariss, S., Smith, T., Enderby, P. and Roots, A., 2013. Ten
principles of good interdisciplinary team work. Human resources for Health, 11(1), p.19.
Rogers, R., 2017. Critical discourse analysis in education. Discourse and education, pp.41-
54.
Turns, J.A., Sattler, B., Yasuhara, K., Borgford-Parnell, J. and Atman, C.J., 2014, June.
Integrating reflection into engineering education. In Proceedings of the ASEE Annual
Conference and Exposition. ACM (Vol. 35, p. 64).
Walther, J., Kellam, N., Sochacka, N. and Radcliffe, D., 2011. Engineering competence? An
interpretive investigation of engineering students' professional formation. Journal of
Engineering Education, 100(4), pp.703-740.
Walther, J., Sochacka, N.W. and Kellam, N.N., 2013. Quality in interpretive engineering
education research: Reflections on an example study. Journal of Engineering
Education, 102(4), pp.626-659.
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