Co-ops Help Lead to Successful Civil Engineering Career

Kate MacDougall, E’08, civil engineering, completed three very different co-ops, including an international research assignment, which together helped her discover her passion and a successful career in driving collaborative engineering projects and building relationships, while growing the business.


Growing up, Kate MacDougall, E’08, civil engineering, knew she loved math, but she wasn’t sure how to turn it into a career. She thought mathematicians must be lonely people, spending days in solitude while solving complex problems—a scenario this outgoing, team-oriented person could not imagine for herself.

Then she discovered engineering, and the pieces began to fall into place. “Engineering really appealed to my collaborative nature,” MacDougall says.

Today, MacDougall is an associate principal for e2 engineers where she manages structural engineering projects with responsibility for building industry relationships and growing the business in Massachusetts for this Connecticut-based company.

When it came time to decide on college, MacDougall was initially set to attend Syracuse University, until she learned about the co-op program at Northeastern. “I loved the idea that I could graduate with work experience,” MacDougall says.

A series of three co-ops, all focused on different areas of civil engineering, helped her identify how she wanted to shape her career path. “Co-ops were absolutely essential to where I am now,” MacDougall says. “The experience was invaluable.”

She did her first co-op at Rizzo International, an engineering and earth sciences consulting firm, where she worked on site and land development projects. Her manager encouraged her to share ideas, which helped her develop confidence. She particularly liked the office environment, where colleagues collaborated and enjoyed each other’s company. She has fond memories of company outings and its softball league.

“I learned about this facet of engineering, and I decided I wanted to try other avenues,” MacDougall says. “I enjoyed it but thought I might enjoy structural engineering more.”

On her second co-op at Souza, True, and Partners, a full-service structural consulting firm, she focused on structural engineering projects, which confirmed her interest to pursue this line of work. “I liked understanding how buildings are constructed, and I learned how to read and interpret drawings,” she says.

For her final co-op, she worked as a research assistant on underwater landslide research and soil testing under the supervision of Thomas Sheahan, who was a professor of civil engineering and now serves as the university’s executive vice provost.

As part of the co-op, MacDougall attended the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute in Oslo, Norway for nine weeks conducting statistical analysis of soil. “I learned how to take data, run mathematical statistics on it, and figure out what the data was telling us,” MacDougall says.

“It gave me this broad experience of seeing what it was like to live someplace else and to work someplace else,” MacDougall says. “It was an opportunity to get to know other people in the industry and learn how to communicate with them.”

As a result of her work in Norway, she was included as a contributor on two papers published by Sheahan’s research team.

“I loved that I was able to do three totally different co-ops in totally different work environments,” MacDougall says of her sequence of jobs. “When I was done, I had a focus and knew I wanted to do structural engineering at a company that had a good feel and a collaborative culture.”

After graduation, MacDougall attended the University of Virginia and earned an MS in civil engineering. Graduating in 2010 during a tight job market, she took a job at Zachry Nuclear, Inc., working as a civil/structural engineer. Even though she had not planned to work in this industry, she found it a valuable experience.

She was on staff at Zachry when the nuclear accident occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. “I got to see how an industry as a whole can pivot and how they responded to that accident and identified changes they needed to make,” she says.

MacDougall developed an appreciation for scheduling and deadlines, which were critical at Zachry. “We had a very formal process of assigning a person to do the calculations, someone to check the calculations from a technical standpoint, someone to check from an administrative standpoint, and then a boss to sign off on it,” she says.

She was hired by e2 in 2014, first working as a senior structural engineering in New London, Connecticut and then moving to Concord, Massachusetts to expand the company’s presence. Her job enables her to do what she loves: work on structural engineering projects while also building an upbeat, collaborative culture, and building relationships in industry to expand the business.

“Every day is different, and I like the challenge and seeing projects come to life when we are done,” she adds.

Related Departments:Civil & Environmental Engineering