Engineering Programs in Canada

“While I was getting the crowd ready to sing karaoke in an Agassiz, B.C. bar, it hit me: This is no career.”That’s how Pauline Westlin describes her zigzagging education and work life before landing a job as a systems verification engineer at Nortel Networks in Ottawa. “I just love my engineering job,” she raves. “I wake up every morning and it’s like ‘WOW.’”

Between karaoke hostessing and becoming an engineer, Westlin spent several years studying electrical engineering. But finding that path took some doing.

“I’d always loved music and had imagined that I’d be a high school music teacher,” she explains. “I was completely into the arts — music, literature, history and philosophy. I’d actually completed two years of music education at the University of Victoria before realizing it wasn’t for me.” The karaoke bar and other part-time no-brainer jobs in her hometown were next. She never even thought about a career in technology.

All that changed after she went back to UVic and began hanging out with engineers. Westlin was still looking for a discipline and her pals pushed her to apply for engineering. “I thought only guys with straight As in math and science could study engineering,” she laughs. “You know, the geeks. And I didn’t think it was open to girls. From my perception, girls could study engineering only if they were totally outstanding. Guys could be average.” She believes that growing up in a town with a population of 5,000 didn’t help. “With only 30 in my graduating class, girls weren’t encouraged to do different things. Big cities have another set of rules.”

But she applied to UVic engineering, got in, and graduated on time. “I panicked during finals in the beginning,” Westlin recalls. “Was I good enough? Did I have the brainpower? But the professors taught us things in sequence. Like taking math 12 after finishing math 11. One step at the time. I gave it my best shot.”

What surprised Westlin after switching from education to engineering was the respect. “Going to a garage, for instance, the mechanics treated me differently,” she chuckles. “No needless repairs. A doctor explained in scientific terms what was wrong with my knee, while before, I’d just be given a pill. They look at you with different eyes. It’s funny.”

Now 27, Westlin adores her work at Nortel. Her job is to “break things.” She takes network components, hooks them together and makes sure they meet the specs. “I have to find the holes in the system. And I have to imagine how someone could put these components together in weird ways and blow up a telephone or manufacturing system. Thinking up screwy methods forces me to be really creative. It lets the barn doors of my brain fly open.”

Westlin thoroughly enjoys her job’s technical brainteasers and feels her work environment is awesome. Her hours are flexible. As long as she gets her work done, no one cares if she shows up mid-morning in jeans and a t-shirt or works from home. “This