On October 19^th, 2016, Monica Born, Vice President and Senior Engineering Manager of WSP | Parsons Brinkerhoff, visited USC and shared her journey, in particular her experience managing several METRO rail projects as a project manager.

Born has been involved in multiple major rail line projects with L.A. METRO, including the Expo Line Phase 1 and 2, the Pasadena Gold Line, and the Foothill Extension. All of these projects run through several jurisdictions and impose large environmental impacts, making the environmental review process challenging and time-consuming. Nevertheless, Born led her team in working with every city along all the routes, attending community meetings to gather feedback and address and mitigate risks. She repeatedly emphasized that perseverance was the key to success, and that it applies to both students and professionals.

One especially inspiring story that Born shared  was when she came across a new job posting with responsibilities that she felt unsure of being able to fulfill. Overcoming her hesitation after quite some time, Born noticed that the job vacancy was still open and decided to apply anyway. In the end, she received an offer for the job on the same day she was interviewed. This experience is extremely encouraging  because college graduates often find themselves capable of most, but not all, tasks in the job descriptions. Sometimes a student may only apply for a job when he or she meets every requirement. However, by believing in oneself and being willing to take risks, Born demonstrated that job seekers can still win the job, and this mindset will broaden their own employment opportunities tremendously.

To conclude her presentation, Born offered the students a few points of advice to prepare for a career in transportation. First of all, aside from being technically sound, students should value networking and try to interact with companies by showing their interest, she said. Secondly, every interview is a chance to practice, therefore students should apply and try to get as many interviews as they can. In addition, professional licensure is very important and should be obtained as soon as possible, before work and family become a burden. Lastly, a career in transportation may run into the unexpected, yet there is always time to steer it back in the right direction.

Born’s career journey opened up new perspectives for students who are interested in transit. Price undergrad Griffin Kantz noted that he was not aware that the private sector can bear such significant responsibilities in large transit projects similar to the public sector. emphasized that Born’s work on the rail projects in Los Angeles as both an engineer and planner is essentially his “dream job,”  and was personally inspired to reach higher as he completes his formal education and enters the transportation workforce.

Jimmy Mai

Mai is a second-year Master of Civil Engineering student focusing on Transportation Engineering. He is currently an intern for the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering, a Student Assistant for METRANS, and the Vice President of the ITE USC chapter. Jimmy is interested in multimodal transportation, parking management, and project management.