The rocky road to mining engineering

Why did you choose to go into your field of study at UBC?

Engineering is a pretty special place — we’ve got a pretty stellar community of all-star individuals (as you’ll see, as more APSC Rising Star bios come out). 

Picking engineering was easy; when I was in high school, I was caught between pursuing fine arts or pursuing engineering. My aunt told me that it was much easier to do an engineering degree and have arts as a hobby rather than have a fine arts degree and do engineering as a hobby — and I stand by that.

Picking a discipline within engineering after that was hard — I like to code, and I like design. I was thinking of doing engineering physics or computer engineering, but I had a pretty rough go at first year and ended up repeating first year to get enough credits to get into second year. After that, I was happy to be placed in any department, and I was lucky enough that mining picked me. 

Mining is by far the best program — you get to learn about surface chemistry, chemical processing, loading and hauling, explosives, soil mechanics, and environmental design. It can take you anywhere, whether you want to work in a downtown office, or do a fly-in fly-out lifestyle with a couple weeks on site and then a couple weeks vacation every month. It’s not all rocks and trucks though — technology is hitting the mining industry in a big way. There’s drones on site for surveying, autonomous haul trucks, Starlink internet trials, remote operating sensors, and a metric tonne of big data to sort through.

Tell us about your experience in your program. What have you learned that is most valuable?

The UBC mining program is all about breadth — it’s really interdisciplinary, and you learn a lot about a lot of different things. From exploration, underground mine design, open pit mine design, drill & blast, mineral processing, closure — because you’re introduced to so many topics, you can really go anywhere. 

Because there’s so much content, I think the most important thing I learned was to listen and ask questions. 

Learn from others because they have a lot to share. Getting different perspectives is important to solving problems; nothing is made in a vacuum. Some of the best solutions come from outside the industry, because other industries have the same problems. Fatigue that astronauts experience is the same fatigue that haul truck drivers experience, and we can share monitoring systems and strategies for that.

The opposite also holds true — processes used in the mining industry can be used elsewhere. The prime example I can think of was my favourite course: a grad-level e-waste mining course I took in my final semester. Applying the four years of mining education to the e-waste recycling process was really cool and at the end of the day, mineral processing is just extracting the good stuff (valuable metal) out of the bad stuff, so why shouldn’t we apply that to recycling? I didn’t expect the mining engineering program to have so much focus on a circular economy and how mining fits into that.

Where do you find your inspiration for using your degree to make an impact on our world?

My main motivation has always been people. I’ve had a pretty great experience and I want to provide that for others and make it even better. 

An engineering degree is really a degree in problem-solving. I like improving processes and providing value to others. 

It’s that urge to fix things — have you ever gotten frustrated by a loose door handle, a disorganized drawer, a finnicky lock, or something else that adds a couple extra seconds to your day? There’s a great deal of satisfaction in solving problems, and I can’t wait to get out into the workforce and make things better.