Aerospace Engineering Overview

Melinda
Cecacci
Aerospace
Technologist - Flight Control
NASA Johnson Space
Center

	BS, Mechanical Engineering, University of Akron
	Aerospace Technologist, working in mission control as a propulsion systems engineer, and working with astronauts to solve in-flight propulsion problems.
	Melinda feels that one of the best things in her education was the co-op work program -- in fact, she says that without her co-op experience she wouldn't be at NASA today.
	"Polish up on your presentation skills, your communications skills. Learn how to learn; work hard while you're in college. It's four or five short years of intense studying and sheer excruciating pain, but it's going to pay you off for the next forty, fifty, or however many years you decide to work after you graduate."

Ceccaci: "We have to sync up with other places in the world that are, of course, at different times. When it's nighttime here it's daytime there. So we have to make sacrifices and maybe work, you know, through the middle of the night or, you know, three days straight, changing off shifts. In addition, during flights, the shuttle's up 24 hours a day, for however many days that mission's supposed to be."

Q: Do you think that advancement opportunity in the world of mechanical engineers in general, and at NASA, is as open to women as it is to men?
Ceccaci: Women have unbelievable opportunities today compared to decades ago. However, I think it's important to understand that everyone should be qualified for the job they do, whether they be male or female, black or white, Hispanic, Chinese, it doesn't matter. If that person is qualified to do the job, they will get to where they want to get. It seems like the government has made a huge effort in making sure that there is no discrimination. I would like to think the people get their jobs because they're qualified.

Q: You've obviously studied a lot of things about mechanical engineering. Looking back on your work in the university or college, was there anything that you studied that has almost no value to you today?
Ceccaci: There are a lot of things that I studied that I am not using today. But the idea in school, looking back, I think the key was to learn how to learn. What people do here at Johnson Space Center, or any of the other NASA centers, are tasks that they learn on the job. They are things that they will learn how to do from the peers that they work with, from the specific documentation that's developed at that company, and I think that's true of any corporation. There are going to be many skills, if you're in design or manufacturing, that I'm sure, I'm certain you're going to use from your studies and the texts and the classes that you took in college. However, in my current job I don't use many of those, but the basic foundations that I learned through those four years of college very much apply to my understanding of the systems that I work on in the shuttle.

Q: Are there any -- and if there are, tell me about them -- personal sacrifices you feel that you're making, willingly or not willingly, to be an active and valuable professional at NASA?
Ceccaci: There are going to be sacrifices in any job you take, whether it be traveling across the world for any amount of time, working crazy hours, etc. Here at JSC, the one that we're probably most faced with is the odd hours, particularly with the joint operations, with the European Space Agency, the Russians. We have to "sync up" with other places in the world which are, of course, at different times. When it's nighttime here, it's daytime there. So we have to make sacrifices and maybe work, you know, through the middle of the night or three days straight, changing off shifts. Of course, somebody's going to have to work in the middle of the night. So that's probably the biggest sacrifice we have to make. In addition, during flights, the shuttle's up 24 hours a day, for however many days that mission's supposed to be. That may be, for example, 17 days long. Well, you're pretty much out of commission for 17 days as far as doing anything in the real world because you're expected to be here. Somebody has to be here 24 hours a day, and those are split into three shifts. So, you may be on one of those shifts that aren't the most pleasant hours. So there are some sacrifices that have to be made, but when you like what you're doing, the sacrifices don't seem so big.

Q: If you were speaking to mechanical-engineering students today who are seriously considering your field or a related field, what would you tell them are things to look for within their experience that would indicate to them that they shouldn't continue their studies and pick another field?
Ceccaci: There's no easy way to know if you're going to like doing what you're studying -- when what you're going to be doing is five years down the road. So, the best way to do that would be to assess how you're doing in your schoolwork. How are your grades? How is the homework? Is it really, really hard? Are you finding yourself not understanding anything? Are you finding yourself understanding things but not really liking it? There were some classes that I didn't like, mechanical-engineering classes that weren't my favorites, but for the most part, those were few and far between. So, I think that those are the best indications -- without actually going out and talking to mechanical engineers, or without going out and looking at the jobs that mechanical engineers do.