 Melinda
Cecacci
Aerospace
Technologist - Flight
Control
NASA Johnson Space
Center
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 BS, Mechanical
Engineering, University of Akron |
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Aerospace
Technologist, working in mission control as a propulsion systems
engineer, and working with astronauts to solve in-flight
propulsion problems. |
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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. |
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"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." |
 
"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.
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