Supercharge Your Engineering Journey: Expert Tips from Mechanical Engineer Mamadou Diallo on Effective Learning

Shandra McDonald [00:00:05]:

This is the Academic Survival Podcast, and I'm your host, Dr. Shandra McDonald. Statistics show that approximately 40% of students drop out of college every year. In fact, nearly 30% drop out their first year. Well, I am on a mission to improve these stats. You.

Mamadou Diallo [00:00:33] Episode Teaser:

And also, like, sometimes some teachers aren't really good at explaining certain topics, but your friends might be better. For example, like, I can clearly remember back in when I was doing Calculus Three, right? Calculus Three is a very 3D oriented class. Right. So you have these mathematical equations that model 3D objects. You have, like, the X, the Y, and the Z plane. And for whatever reason, it just came very naturally to me. Right. But some of my classmates, they struggled with that, and the teacher was moving so fast in class, they couldn't keep up. But because we had studied, we always studied and prepared for exams as a group. That concept, I would go and break it down, how to think about it, and because I had more time, I could break it down and take it slow versus the teacher. Right. And the same thing happened for me. For example, like, when we were doing physics, too, there are certain concepts of electricity, and I really struggle with it. But I had friends who were planning to go into electrical engineering, so they taught me, helped me understand where my gap was.

Shandra McDonald [00:01:54]:

That's mechanical engineer Mamadou Diallo, explaining the importance of study groups. Join us as we dive into the world of engineering. We discuss the engineering career pathways, Institute, the different disciplines in engineering, and key habits that successful students develop to maximize their learning potential. Stay tuned.

Welcome to the Academic Survival podcast. Today I have with me Mamadou diallo. He is an engineer. And I'm so excited that you agreed to come on the podcast with me today. How are you?

Mamadou Diallo [00:02:29]:

I'm doing well. Glad to be here. Excited to be on here to talk about engineering and hopefully share something that will be yes, yes.

Shandra McDonald [00:02:39]:

So can you start off by telling me what school you went to?

Mamadou Diallo [00:02:44]:

So I went to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Short name is UMBC, and I studied mechanical engineering there. Actually, I went to two schools. I started at community college. So I went to the Community College of Baltimore County. I got my associate degree in engineering science, and then from there, I went to transfer to finish up my bachelor's degree.

Shandra McDonald [00:03:11]:

All right, so did you know coming out of high school that you wanted to be an engineer all along, or did you pick a major and then switch majors? How was that for you?

Mamadou Diallo [00:03:22]:

No, I did not know at all. As a matter of fact, I really didn't know what I wanted to do with my bachelor's degree well, after high school. I just know that, of course, I was always drawn to medicine, but usually a lot of students want to go to medicine. They want to do something like biology, which I wasn't interested in. So, I was on this dilemma. And so, when I graduated high school and I didn't know what to do, I decided to go to community college. And actually, I did general studies for my first year of college, and I took classes in my interest. So, history, math. I explored career paths. I didn't really have that guidance going out of high school, so I explored and then I enjoyed solving challenging problems and concepts. And eventually I saw this thing that was engineering. I was like, oh, what is it? It seems very cool. It seems very hard. It seems it's going to test me. So, I was drawn to the challenge of doing something that appeared difficult because I know it would make me a better person, a better individual. So from there on, I went down the rabbit hole of engineering and trying to do pre-med at the same time.

Shandra McDonald [00:04:44]:

Oh, my gosh.

Mamadou Diallo [00:04:46]:

Yeah, it was interesting. Basically, I started the engineering curriculum my second year of college to get my associate degree. It was tough. It was hard, but I liked it, and also while taking pre-med classes as well. So when I got my associate degree, well, I had the option of doing both. But I was just so interested and in love with engineering. I told myself, listen, if I ever want to do pre-med or take the MCAT, I can always do that. Let me just focus on engineering and see how it goes. So, yeah, when I transferred, I focused on just mechanical engineering. I graduated, started working, and I've been enjoying it so far.

Shandra McDonald [00:05:32]:

All right, so did you have any stumbling blocks along the way in terms of engineering? Did you ever feel as though, this is too hard, I need help, or did you have to ever get tutoring?

Mamadou Diallo [00:05:46]:

Yes. I think, honestly, one of the hardest things was, of course, we always talk about diversity and things like that, but when I looked around, classmates, teachers, and even when I went to career, . . . things like that, I never really saw people of color. So it was just predominantly led by, I didn't really see a lot, and I wasn't really sure, is this for me? Am I doing this right? Why? I couldn't really see anyone who I could relate to or work with. So it was kind of hard. But there were a few Black students here and there, and we worked together, studied together. Of course, we had also everyone in there, but it was kind of hard. That was honestly the hardest challenge. . . So that was definitely hard. It was harder than the curriculum itself, to be honest.

Shandra McDonald [00:06:51]:

Really? I have a friend who has an engineering background, and he said something similar, that being in that space and people really not expecting him as a Black male to be in engineering was harder for him than the coursework because he was really good at math. And so with you, you experienced something similar. Were you able to find a mentor or someone that you could follow that may be not necessarily on campus, but somewhere in life? Were you able to find a mentor?

Mamadou Diallo [00:07:33]:

To be honest, no. In terms of engineering mentor, honestly, no. I'm fortunate because I did have support, and I'm so grateful for that. Right. So, for example, in community college, there was Laura Lamire. She was the director of the engineering program at the community college. And they had this program to help people of color and people from underprivileged backgrounds to support them in STEM. Right. So there was, like, this scholarship program. It supported students who were doing engineering or computer science. So things like that. So we would have a get-together. And she played an important role because also when I was in the process of getting my associate degree and I was still doubtful that I could do this because I couldn't really see other people who looked like me doing it. She helped me get an internship with a company that was locally, that was recruiting. When I got there, I started working. It made a huge step because it allowed me to get around other engineers and what they do and say, okay, well, I could do this as well. It's not as complicated. It's not as complex. So that was a very important step. And then when I transferred, it was really just working and studying with friends that made the biggest difference.

Shandra McDonald [00:09:14]:

Yeah. So basically sounds like having that support group of like-minded individuals trying to go down the same path provided you a little bit of love along the way.

Mamadou Diallo [00:09:28]:

Absolutely.

Shandra McDonald [00:09:30]:

I know that there's different types of engineers. Tell me about the different types and how you ended up choosing mechanical engineering.

Mamadou Diallo [00:09:38]:

So there's mechanical engineering, and mechanical engineering is focused on motion. So like any materials, any vehicles or structures that involve movement mechanics, mechanical engineering focuses on that. And then you have electrical engineering that focuses on electricity. The use converting electricity to another form of usable energy or providing electricity, making electricity accessible, or basically powering devices using electricity. So electrical engineering focused on that as a basis. And then, of course, you had computer engineering. Computer engineering focuses on hardware. So, like, the devices you need to build computers, but also the software, like, the programs, if you think about Windows is a software program, right. You need Windows to run your computer. But if you have Windows, you don't have a computer itself. Can't do nothing either. Right. So you need both pieces. So common engineering merged the two, and then you have beyond that, you have more discipline fields, but honestly, all the other ones are sub-specialties of that. So, for example, if you look at aerospace engineering. Aerospace engineering focuses on airplanes, aerodynamics or space. But really, they apply concepts of mechanical engineering because airplanes are moving objects, right. So it's a sub-specialties of mechanical engineering. And then you'll have electronics engineering, which is a sub-specialties of electrical engineering, but for smaller devices, because if you think about it, there's electricity in your phone, right? The phone uses electricity, but it uses small devices because it's such a complex system. It has its own specialty. Right. And then also, if you look at the electricity in your house right. That's also electricity, but you have two different electrical engines working on it.

Shandra McDonald [00:11:54]:

Oh, wow.

Mamadou Diallo [00:11:55]:

Yeah. And then, of course, there's agricultural engineering, and then that's its own specialty. And then you have its own discipline, agricultural engineering. And they employ a lot of science and chemistry because they usually work with the earth right. With the environment, rain like composition of the soil, the health of the plants. Or they may make tractors. Build tractors, but there's also mechanical engineering there.

Shandra McDonald [00:12:30]:

Yeah. What about civil engineering? I was just speaking to no, I.

Mamadou Diallo [00:12:35]:

Was about to go there. Yes, I was about to go civil engineering.

Shandra McDonald [00:12:41]:

I have a coworker whose son wants to become a civil engineer. Tell me a little bit more about civil engineering.

Mamadou Diallo [00:12:51]:

Yeah, well, then there's civil engineering, which civil engineers play a very critical role in our infrastructure, in our world. But if you think about it, engineering as an ecosystem, everyone plays a role. So civil engineers, they build structures that shelter, that provide service for humanity or things. They just focus on building structures. So buildings are designed by civil engineers. Roads are designed and built by civil engineers. Bridges are designed and built by civil engineers. And within civil engineering, you also have the structural engineering. And the structural engineers, they focus more so on the supporting structures that hold the building in place. So if you think about your house, you have walls that are there, but if those walls get knocked down, you're fine. Really? The house are going to stay standing. Right. But then there are certain pillars that keep the building up. If you knock those down, the whole thing is going to crumble. So structural engineers structurally sound. Yeah. So structural engineers focus on the foundation and the ability of the structure of the building to support the load that's going to be on it. So they have to estimate how much load is this building expected to carry in its lifetime? They have to calculate what is the likelihood of an earthquake happening, and if so, what is the magnitude of that, and they have to take that into account as a load as well. Right.

Shandra McDonald [00:14:37]:

Wow.

Mamadou Diallo [00:14:38]:

But they're also civil engineers. And then I actually found out another specialty of civil engineering, which is garage restoration.

Shandra McDonald [00:14:46]:

And yes, I heard that episode on.

Mamadou Diallo [00:14:51]:

Your podcast, so I didn't even know that was a thing. But Nick, that's his specialty. He studied civil engineering, and so that was a specialty so you have all these niche disciplines within the larger discipline. So yeah. How that gives you a great overview of it.

Shandra McDonald [00:15:13]:

Yeah, that's really good. Now, when there was that building that collapsed in was it in Florida? Was like a condo and several people lost their lives. Was that a mechanical engineering issue of not agricultural? So you've got structure, you've got mechanical. What happened, to your knowledge, if you know anything about it, what's your assessment on what failed there?

Mamadou Diallo [00:15:42]:

Yeah, I looked into it. There was also a bridge, I think, in Delaware that collapsed last year as well, in the fall.

Shandra McDonald [00:15:50]:

Oh, yeah, I remember that.

Mamadou Diallo [00:15:51]:

Yeah. So I look into these things because I'm interested in so, for example, what happened in Florida. It was more so like it was a structural issue. I think there was negligence, a couple of parties. Of course, I don't remember how old that building was, but at some point, whoever is in charge of maintaining the building is supposed to have quality and structural engineers who come in and inspect the building and look at the foundation and see if they notice any cracks and things like that. And if they do, they're supposed to do something about it. Right. So that's where that idea of maintenance comes in. So now, in this case, I don't remember if they noticed signs of the foundation wearing down and they decided not to do anything about it, or if they never caught it, which, in case they never brought in the people who were supposed to inspect it. Right. So either way, things like that happen, and usually they happen when you don't have proper quality and maintenance system set in place to prevent that.

Shandra McDonald [00:17:04]:

Okay.

Mamadou Diallo [00:17:05]:

Yeah.

Shandra McDonald [00:17:05]:

Okay. Yeah. So these are just all the different things that somebody with the engineering background can be involved in.

Mamadou Diallo [00:17:14]:

Yeah. And even sorry to interrupt. Even if you think about, like, even in a building, right. It's not just a building is civil engineers might build the building, but you need mechanical and electrical engineers to make it functional. Right. You need electric elevators, the elevators, but power.

Shandra McDonald [00:17:35]:

Yeah.

Mamadou Diallo [00:17:35]:

Right. The power that you're going to use in the building, the amount of power needed, you'll need electrical engineers to make those calculations and make that design aspect. So when you design in that building, you'll have the civil engineers and the structural engineering that design the foundation. They design, okay, this is where the concrete is going to go. This is how much concrete we need. This is how tall is going to be. And then they'll take that, they'll pass it on to an electrical engineer, and then electrical engineer is going to go, okay, well, if we have this many people using it, and we're going to need refrigerators, we're going to need air conditioners. We're going to need water heaters. Okay. This is how much power you need. And this is where you put the wires and things like that. And then beyond that, you'll have the mechanical engineers. The mechanical engineers, they design the water system. So, like, the water that you have in the building, how much power you need to that, what kind of water boilers you need, the pipe size, where to lay them out. The mechanical engineers, there's HVAC engineers. So HVAC is heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. They are mechanical engineers, and they do that aspect of it. So they decide how much heating and cooling is needed in the building, what kind of air conditioners need to buy for that, and things like that. So it's an ecosystem, and all the disciplines need each other to make things functional.

Shandra McDonald [00:19:04]:

Yes, absolutely. I never looked at it that way, but absolutely, it's an ecosystem. As a freshman in college, what advice would you give to a freshman in college in terms of sticking through with the discipline or even selecting which type of engineer they would want to be? What advice would you give a freshman?

Mamadou Diallo [00:19:39]:

Man all right. That's a loaded question. So in terms of just selecting a discipline, I would highly encourage students to try to see if they can shadow someone or maybe start working on figuring out maybe okay. What mechanical engineers do and looking at that and trying it out. And I would just say, just look it up, see what they do, and see what you're leaning towards. And also what I want to tell them, also, listen, it's not written in stone. It doesn't seal your fate. So let's say you go with mechanical engineering or you realize something. It's okay. There are mechanical engineers who work on electronics, right. You have mechanical engineers that work at Apple building phones. Right. Working with electronic engineers. So oftentimes, it's the experience that matters. Work. Some of my colleagues are electrical engineers. I'm a mechanical engineers. But we all work together, and we all work on the same systems. We all work on the same devices. So don't overthink it too much. Right. But understanding the basic foundation is important, because when you do mechanical engineering, for example, at least for me, I decided to go with mechanical engineering because it touched on all the other disciplines. It touched on electrical. It touched on software engineering. It touched on, of course, aerospace engineering. It touched on civil engineering. Right. You have to do structural analysis as a mechanical engineer. So it touched on everything. And I felt like from there on, I could be able to go into whatever my interests lie. Right. So, yeah, that was my approach. I forgot to also mention there's industrial engineering as well.

Shandra McDonald [00:21:37]:

Sorry.

Mamadou Diallo [00:21:37]:

They just keep coming. There's industrial engineers. So industrial engineers also, they build machinery. So, like, in the plants, if you look at in these big plants where you have where they may be making cars or things like that, you have industrial engineers in there. You have manufacturing engineers in there, so it's unlimited. But to go back to your question, freshman year is very important. I think that's when you really should try to build some really good habits. I would say take some time and learn how to learn. Right. Learn how to study fast, because that's going to be your most valuable asset. Learning how to study and understand concepts quickly is critical because the information is so vast and the classes move really fast and you have to be able to keep up. And here's the thing. There's a reason why some people learn faster than you. They're not smarter than you. It's just because they have, for whatever reason, by chance or by intention, they learn how to learn. They learn methods that allow them to quickly retain a lot of information, whereas you didn't. So you can be better at that. And if you can be better at that, you'll be better at all the subjects that you learn in class.

Shandra McDonald [00:23:03]:

That is such good advice. Learn how to learn. That is so good.

Mamadou Diallo [00:23:08]:

Yeah. So I would say that there's like a doctor there's, someone like with a doctorate education. I can't think of his name right now, but he has a concept of this and he has advice and tips, and he even have these exercises to help you improve on that. Maybe I'll see if I can find and send it to you offline. But it's very helpful. It's very critical. What else? So there's that really learning how to learn is critical. And then beyond that, implementing those learning habits, you're going to need them throughout college. So the sooner you started, the better. Doing that and then also having good study buds. I don't know anyone who survived engineering school by themselves. It doesn't matter how special you are. And I'm sure this can be applied to other courses as well, you'll see, like premed and at least med school students, they'll learn together, study together, and that way what happens is we all.

Shandra McDonald [00:24:21]:

Have creating an ecosystem. It's an ecosystem for your learning.

Mamadou Diallo [00:24:25]:

Right? Yeah. And also, sometimes some teachers aren't really good at explaining certain topics, but your friends might be better. I know. For example, I can clearly remember back in when I was doing Calculus Three, right? My last year of communal college, we were taking Calculus Three. And Calculus Three is a very 3D oriented class, right. So you have these mathematical equations that model 3D objects. You have like, the X, the Y, and the Z plane. And for whatever reason, I understood that vectors, it just came very naturally to me. Right, okay. But some of my classmates, they struggled with that, and for whatever reason, they couldn't comprehend it. And the teacher was moving so fast in class, they couldn't keep up. But because we had studied, we always studied and prepared for exams as a group. That concept, I would go and break it down to how to think about it. And because I had more time, I could break it down and take it slow versus the teacher. Right?

Shandra McDonald [00:25:33]:

Yeah.

Mamadou Diallo [00:25:34]:

And the same thing happened for me. For example, like when we were doing physics, too, there are certain concepts of electricity, and I really struggle with it, but I had friends who leaned more towards that and actually they were planning to go into electrical engineering. Right. So it made sense. And I was going to mechanical engineer, so it made sense for me to understand that. So they taught me, helped me understand where my gap was. So that's why it's so important. So I would say critical.

Shandra McDonald [00:26:07]:

That is such good advice. Wow. Okay, so with being a mechanical engineer, what are you working on right now that's exciting for you?

Mamadou Diallo [00:26:20]:

I'm working on things online and also at work, but then also personally, that I'm very excited.

Shandra McDonald [00:26:27]:

Is there anything that you could tell?

Mamadou Diallo [00:26:31]:

Okay, well, I can't go into specifics, but if you're familiar with the concept, I guess R and D, which is like research and development. So one of the projects I'm working on at work is we're working on this project to basically help I can't tell the company's name, I'm sorry, but it's an entity with the government to help them really improve the speed at which they're doing certain things. Right. And it has huge impact. Just monetarily, but also just in terms of the survivability of that branch. Okay. So it's very exciting to see that, because, again, oftentimes when you see these huge projects, like an airplane or something like that, you wonder, wow, how did it happen? How do you start from nothing, just a thought, to here. So having the opportunity to work on that and being involved on that and seeing a project of that scale to work is always amazing. Right. But then offline, there are certain things, certain aspects of my development. Now I'm a technical project manager, so I don't always get to do the nitty gritty, but because I like to do it and like to develop myself individually, I have projects at home that I work on. So currently I'm working on building a converter system for a plant. But I'm doing it my own way. So I'm reinforcing some of that learning in school, some of that learning at work. Right. And I'm doing it at home, and it's very fulfilling. And I'm getting to apply and develop certain parts of my engineering knowledge that, for whatever reason, because of my role, I can't really use at work. But I want to still use them. I want to develop them. Right. So I'm doing that. And that's also another thing. You don't have to feel like you have to always do it at the job. If you really care about it, you can do it offline and still get as much fulfillment. Right. I want to build things. I have young kids. I want to build, like, drones with them and things like that, and I'm working on that, so it's fun, and I'm still learning. Right? You'd think that it's done, but it's really not.

Shandra McDonald [00:28:59]:

Wow, that's so special. You want to build drones with them? That just tickles me, because for me, I just go buy one, so that's awesome.

Mamadou Diallo [00:29:12]:

Yeah.

Shandra McDonald [00:29:13]:

Wow. Oh, my gosh. Your kids must be super smart. What about any type of mentoring? What are you doing now? Are you at all helping people who are interested in engineering?

Mamadou Diallo [00:29:30]:

Yeah, absolutely. Of course. I do the Engineers of Podcast, where.

Shandra McDonald [00:29:35]:

I bring yes, tell us about that. Tell us about your podcast for engineering. Tell us about the programs, what's going on?

Mamadou Diallo [00:29:42]:

Yeah, so the engineers podcast started really out of that need. Again, if you remember, I told you earlier, it was very isolating going through engineering school, and sometimes it felt alone. So what I ended up doing was after I graduated, I was like, you know what? I'm going to do something about this, because I wish I had seen other people that look like me doing engineering. So I was like, okay, you know what? Now that I'm in industry, there are people like me doing engineering, but you don't get to see them. So I want to give them an opportunity, give a platform where we can showcase their brilliance and hopefully in the process inspire other maybe high schoolers or other students right now in college who are doing engineering, and maybe they feel isolated to let them know they're not alone. So it started like that. That was back in summer 2019, was it, or 2020. I don't remember anymore. So I did that for two years, and I got really good feedback, right? And I'm barely doing any promotion, but the numbers are growing. People are finding it. And the crazy thing is people are listening to it all the way to yeah, they're listening in the US. Canada, in Central and South America, in Europe, in Africa, like, everywhere, all the continents, there are people listening to it. So I'm like, wow, there must be a really big need for this. So I kept doing that, and then, of course, beyond that, I wanted to do more. So then this is where I started the Engineering Career Pathways Institute, which is basically the say that again.

Shandra McDonald [00:31:37]:

Say that again.

Mamadou Diallo [00:31:38]:

Engineering career pathways Institute.

Shandra McDonald [00:31:42]:

Okay.

Mamadou Diallo [00:31:45]:

So the Engineers podcast is part of the institute now, but the institute has really three core missions. One is, again, bridging the gap between the standard engineering curriculum at university and the needs of the industry. So one thing also, this is a big gap because students, engineering students, will come out of college, and it's really hard for them to adjust because they don't really know anything about the workplace, and they have to learn again. And one thing I also noticed is there are students or engineering majors who will drop out because they get an internship or they get a job right out of school, and they really hate it. For example, I had a friend who was in mechanical engineering, and we had the same internship, but he still graduated. But eventually he was like, it's not really for him now. I don't know if he just had a bad experience going out in the workplace or for whatever reason, so he does something else now, even though he graduated mechanical engine degree. But there are cases like that as well. So there are students who are dropping out of engineering because of that. And I'm like, well, no matter what your passion is, no matter what your interests are, I guarantee you there are engineers involved in it. So you don't have to work on airplanes. If you don't like working on airplanes, you don't have to work on something that you find boring. If you're into music, guess what? You can revolutionize music by maybe designing a better recording system or building something that helps facilitate people, maybe people who want to listen to music, right? Think about the iPod, right? The iPod. The iPad, right? Well, the iPod was an MPT player, right? So there's always something for you no matter what you like. If you're into boats, if you're into airplanes, if you're into cell phones, if you're into gaming, if you're into whatever you can imagine. I don't know what's the niche is out there, but whatever you're into, there is a place for you. We want to bridge that gap, right? And we want to showcase all the available career pathways in industry to students who are doing engineering or interested in doing engineering. So that's one of our pillars. And the other pillar is well, I mentioned it. So one is bridging the knowledge gap, so figuring out what industries need and then showcasing that to students. And, hey, this is the skills you need beyond your standard curriculum. These are the certifications you need. This is how you get them. It makes a big difference showing them the options available. And then, third, improving, increasing, contributing to the diversity of the engineering workforce. So how we want to do that is by making all the resources we have available to students of underprivileged backgrounds and also developing programs that will help them be ready for the engineering curriculum if they go in there. So give them skills they need in terms of math, physics, and all the other disciplines. Make sure they're ready for that, right. Not make things easier for them, but give them the resources they need in order to be ready to compete. Right? So, yeah, that's the ancestors goals. I launched it last year, December. Right now we're in the process of just working with a couple of universities to see how we can improve things for their students who are major in engineering.

Shandra McDonald [00:35:50]:

Yeah.

Mamadou Diallo [00:35:51]:

And also, actually, this week, earlier this week, I went. To the satellite show in Washington, DC. 2020 satellite show. I had the opportunity to work with a couple of very big and important, I guess, companies that are making satellites, making devices for space exploration, space travel, and working with their team. So seeing also how we can expose space industry and things like that to students, it's amazing what you can do. That's it right there. So that's what I'm doing, mentoring. So it's a lot since I have a job as well, full time job that I do outside of this. But, yeah, we just keep it working and improving.

Shandra McDonald [00:36:40]:

I love it. When I was in high school, there was an exam that we had to take to kind of help you figure out what would be a good career path for you. And when I took the exam, it said civil engineering, and I was like, I don't know what that is. I didn't know what it was. When I would ask, I didn't get any explanations that made it any clearer to me. So a program like yours would have been fantastic for me to be able to plug into, say, hey, I've got these test scores back. It's pointing me in the direction of civil engineering. Can you help me out? I'm not really sure what this is.

Mamadou Diallo [00:37:28]:

Yeah, absolutely. I believe that's really the key. I don't think we need to push any kids to go into engineering that aren't passionate about it. But I really think there are so many kids out there who, if they just knew it was there and was for them, they would go right in without any hesitation. And I think it's just exposing them to it and not making it foreign for them.

Shandra McDonald [00:37:59]:

Yeah, I don't know that based on my math skills, I don't know that I would have ever survived now.

Mamadou Diallo [00:38:07]:

You certainly would have. You certainly would have.

Shandra McDonald [00:38:14]:

Actually, my favorite class in all of high school was geometry, but that's it. I loved geometry, and to me, geometry didn't feel like math.

Mamadou Diallo [00:38:25]:

I think it's probably because you understood it very well, right? And it was intuitive, and it made sense.

Shandra McDonald [00:38:31]:

It did. It made sense. As a matter of fact, like I said, my favorite course in high school was geometry, and my favorite class in college was logic. And so for me, the proofs in geometry felt very much like the logic problems that we had to solve in my philosophy class.

Mamadou Diallo [00:38:54]:

Yeah, I'm serious. My older sister, she was always so afraid of math. But when she went to college and she took college algebra, she aced it because I helped her study. But she had to overcome the fear of it and get tutoring and get help, and she loved it. And it was, like, one of her best classes. And it's really just like a fear. And of course, bad teaching doesn't help.

Shandra McDonald [00:39:27]:

Yes, bad teaching doesn't help. And then also speed. Right? There's this idea that if you can't do it quickly, then you're not good at it.

Mamadou Diallo [00:39:38]:

Yeah, absolutely.

Shandra McDonald [00:39:40]:

That's one of the things. It's like, maybe someone just they can get to the right answer. They just need to get to it. They just need a little bit more time. And then over time, they can get faster at that part. But, yeah, if you just wash out at the beginning because you can't keep up, it's really unfortunate because you just don't know what genius lies behind that person's process. You just need to give them more time.

Mamadou Diallo [00:40:09]:

Yeah, absolutely. And even that, it's also, like, there is such a thing as really, like, a learning style. Also, like, for example, you know, I'm grateful I'm at a point where I know now what works and what doesn't. Right? So I'll give an example. So right now, I'm on a trajectory to get my professional engineering license, which opens up new doors for me. But of course, it requires a certain number of years of experience, and you also have to take the Fundamental of Engineering exam and pass it. Right. So last year, I was preparing to.

Shandra McDonald [00:40:44]:

Take this is something good that students need to know. Okay, continue.

Mamadou Diallo [00:40:48]:

Yeah, so I was prepared to take the Fundamental of Engineering exam, and I was like, wow, I've been out of school so long, maybe I definitely need a refresher in certain concepts. Right. Certain classes. That who maybe made me sweat. I need a little bit of help on there. So I signed up for this program. It was supposed to be like, I think, three months, right? And it was like Mondays and Wednesdays, 3 hours long. Right. And then there were all these problems on the weekend, and it was just so structured. And when I started taking the class, it's like just PowerPoint. And the instructor was just flying through topics, flying through problems, not really breaking it down. And a part of me felt like, am I stupid? What's going on here? I don't really follow this. And then I realized, okay, well, this is not the teaching style for me. So I dropped out of it, and I went back and I reviewed the exam and what I had to study, and I built my own schedule. Right. And I built my own program of studying and schedule, and I took it, and I passed it the first time. Right. It's like [a] five-hour exam. It tests you for everything for everything you learn in college. Right. For Mechanical engineering, I took it the first try. I passed it, and I learned it. I took my own pace and focused on what I thought I needed instead of that. So sometimes students may feel like that with certain teachers. Right? Like, certain teachers, they have genius. Like you mentioned, if you don't understand it quickly, you're dumb or you're stupid, right? No, that's not always the case, especially for me. I really like learning. So for example, if we're learning a subject and we get halfway through it, and I see this really cool concept that I don't understand or I want to explore, I want to pause and really break this down and go back to the root and understand how I get there before I move on. And so what ends up happening is, let's say if someone I suspect in that class and I may get stuck here trying to understand this, and they just keep moving, and then later on, I'm so far behind, I'm just like, there's no point. And that can happen. So as a student, sometime you need to understand that. And if that's the case, you shouldn't internalize just because you don't understand how someone's teaching. And the crazy thing is, this happens even in the professional world, people will come to you with certain things that don't make sense, but because you have the expectation that you have to get it right away, you feel dumb or stupid for not getting it. But when you look at it, you're like, oh, well, actually, this doesn't make any sense. And you have to have professionally doing so as a project manager now with clients, they'll come at you with certain things, and you have to them, hey, this doesn't make sense, and it happens. So, yeah, there are learning styles, and understanding how you like to learn is very important. And if you feel stuck, like, for example, when you're in college, you don't really have an option to really tell the teacher, hey, you need to pause. But I would say that's where your friends come into play. Again, the study groups come into play. They help you how to learn, they help you overcome certain things, and you keep going. But don't let it just because you understand a concept, it's not because you're dumb and just because you're scared of math, it's probably because you liked it at some point, and then maybe the class started going too fast and you lost track. And then for the rest of the time, you felt like crap sitting in there because you couldn't follow what was going on. And you internalize that. No, I would say just go back and trace the roots. And if you need to take your time, certain things take your time, certain things. That's okay.

Shandra McDonald [00:45:08]:

That's good. That's really good advice.

Mamadou Diallo [00:45:10]:

So it took me six years. I just want to put that out there for some students. It didn't take me four years to get my bachelor's degree. It took me six years, right. My first year, I was doing general studies, right? And then it took me two years to get my associate degree. And then from there on, when I went to UMBC, it took me three years because my first year, I paused. I was interested in environmental engineering as well, right. So I explored again. So I explored, and then I went back mechanical engineering, and I graduated, and lo and behold, I'm here. I'm still as successful, and I'm still exploring. I am still exploring. Let it be known. I'm still taking courses offline learning to build drones and things like that. I don't know what the future has in store, but I know that I'm leading towards my passions, so keep that in mind as well. You're not racing against anybody, right? This academic and learning career is not really you're not racing against anybody. You got to do what works for you, and that's okay.

Shandra McDonald [00:46:25]:

That's great advice. That's great advice. Okay, so as we head toward the end of this conversation, tell us where you can be found on social media or what links. How do we find you?

Mamadou Diallo [00:46:41]:

So I'm on LinkedIn.

Shandra McDonald [00:46:42]:

Okay.

Mamadou Diallo [00:46:43]:

If you look for Mamadou, Diallo probably see me. I'm usually on maybe, like, third or fourth search on there.

Shandra McDonald [00:46:50]:

Okay. And your podcast, how do they find your podcast, your other program?

Mamadou Diallo [00:46:56]:

So the podcast, you can find it by going to engineershubpodcast.com, and then from there on, you can listen to it on Apple or Spotify or, you know, it's on all the major podcasting platforms. Google, so you can find it on there. And yeah, from really LinkedIn, and there you can find those platforms. And then for the Institute, it's engineeringcareerpathways.org. So engineeringcarepathways.org. And you can learn more about it there. Yeah, I'm also on Instagram. I've taken a pause on it, but I'm on there as well. So PathPavor_Diallo is my acronym, so you can find me on there as well.

Shandra McDonald [00:47:43]:

All right, well, thank you so much, Mamadou. I'm so glad that you were able to join. You dropped so much good advice, so many good nuggets in this episode, so I'm excited to share it with the students that are listening to the podcast. So thank you very much, and I will be back in touch with you soon.

Mamadou Diallo [00:48:05]:

Absolutely glad to be on here. So thank you. And I think I like what you're doing, and I think this is awesome.

Shandra McDonald [00:48:13]:

All right, I'll see you soon. That's it for today on Academic Survival. If you want to share your story on how you survived your freshman year of college, you can reach me at info@shandralmcdonald.com. We'll be back next week with more ways to survive your academic journey. Until then, happy studying.