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Meet Olivia Rockwell, a civil engineering student and risk taker

By Megan Lantz
04/25/19

Olivia Rockwell, a senior civil engineering student at Penn State, isn’t your “ordinary”
engineering student. Unlike many students who immerse themselves fully into their field of
study, Rockwell tries to involve herself in clubs and organizations well outside of her academic
preferences, including Penn State Homecoming, the Swing Dance Club, the Ukulele Club and
the Nittany Grotto Caving Club.

“I’ve been involved in a lot of things at Penn State just because my interest’s kind of changed
and vary,” Rockwell shared.

Throughout high school, Rockwell loved courses involving STEM. She plunged into
engineering, math and science courses, learning to use software like Autodesk Inventor,
AutoCAD and Autodesk Revit, which she found as a way to push herself and challenge her
skillset.

“I liked the idea of being able to build things,” Rockwell said.

Rockwell also joined a program called Project Lead the Way, which consisted of three
engineering courses that all focused on different aspects of the engineering industry: technology,
software and design and static analysis for physics. At one point, she completed an independent
study designing a train station on an Autodesk Revit. This project gave Rockwell a taste of what
the engineering industry might be like.

“Project Lead the Way was what made me want to come in engineering,” Rockwell said.

When it came time for Rockwell to choose a college, she chose Penn State for one reason – the
SWE stayover sponsored by the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). Each year SWE invites a
number of prospective engineering students to stay at the University for one night. Rockwell
described this experience as a night full of fun, where she learned a lot about Penn State and all it
has to offer.

“After that SWE stayover … on the way home in the car I said ‘Mom, I think I want to go to
Penn State’,” Rockwell said.

Originally, Rockwell wanted to be a landscape architecture major, until she realized it was too
artsy for her. Given her love of STEM and an interest in building things, Rockwell finally settled
on civil engineering.

Now approaching the end of her senior year, Rockwell has been reminiscing on all the
experiences she’s had during her time at Penn State and how those experiences have helped
shape who she is today.

She describes herself as someone who is always up for a challenge. She enjoys pushing herself
and failing in order to learn from that failure. That is why she made sure to immerse herself in a
wide variety of clubs and organizations outside of the engineering field.

During her freshman year, she joined the Swing Dance Club due to an interest in dancing that
she developed at a young age. Rockwell shared how she grew up square dancing to her
grandparents’ band throughout much of her childhood, which inspired her to continue with a new
style of dance.

“I was at the career fair, and I saw these people dressed up in nice clothes and they were playing
music,” Rockwell said. “I went up to them, and I said, OK, well what is this about? … From the
very first day, I had so much fun.”

Rockwell was also involved in the Ukulele Club. She has always liked music and is a quick
learner when it comes to instruments, so she saw this club as a nice way to escape the stress of
her civil engineering studies and meet people with similar interests in the process.
Rockwell also participated in the Nittany Grotto Caving Club prior to the club’s termination in
2018.

“I was actually at a career fair trying to get people to sign up for Swing Dance Club, I was
wearing my swing dance dress and my heels and walking around, and I heard this guy say, ‘Well
that girl wouldn’t go caving,’ and I said ‘Yes, I will!’ So, I signed up for the club, and I started
caving,” Rockwell said.

She is also a member of the 2018-2019 Penn State Homecoming Court. She was nominated to
apply to be a Homecoming Court member, but once she applied she became excited about the
goals of the group.

“‘Guide State Forward’, that was Homecoming’s motto for the year,” she said. “That simple
‘Guide State Forward’ really stood out to me. I wanted to be that person. I wanted to be someone
who I felt made a difference at Penn State, even if it was a small one, and who could be an
inspiration.”

Rockwell said that homecoming was one of her favorite activities while at Penn State because
the opportunity allowed her to hear from a wide variety of people who have had diverse and
remarkable experiences, which was extremely humbling for her.

“I looked up to them, and I thought that someone picking me to be with these incredible people
was really awesome,” Rockwell said.

Not only has Rockwell focused on involving herself in different clubs and organizations at Penn
State, but she has worked hard to obtain two different internships, one that resulted in a full-time
job offer.

She was an imagineer project control specialist intern at Walt Disney World during her junior
year. In this position, Rockwell worked in estimating and change orders, and worked side-by-
side with the general contractor to estimate projects. Rockwell said the internship taught her to
speak up and contribute her opinions in meetings, along with conceptual estimating.

Her second internship was with Mascaro Construction. With this company, Rockwell held two
different positions. The summer following her sophomore year, she was an estimator in the
office of the heavy construction department. At first, Rockwell said she was upset she was
placed in heavy construction, but by the end of the internship, she said it was the best thing that
could have happened to her. Then, the summer following her junior year, she was a project
engineer on a water treatment plant for the Pennsylvania American Water Company.

“I loved it, now I can’t imagine working on buildings,” she said. “It’s so weird because, at first, I
was so destroyed and destressed at the thought of having to do the dirty work of civil
engineering, and then I ended up absolutely loving it.”

Rockwell describes her biggest takeaway from these opportunities as learning to be a sponge.
“As an intern, you just have to soak it all in,” she said.

Internships allow for extraordinary opportunities for learning, she said, and it’s vital to take
advantage of every second of it.

Upon graduation this May, Rockwell will continue her work with Mascaro Construction in the
heavy industrial department.

Media Contact:
Megan Lantz
mel5512@psu.edu

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