Sarah Peachey

My name is Sarah Peachey, a junior at Drexel University, enrolled in their dual degree program. Meaning that in 2018 I will graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering and a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering. It is my dream to apply my technical degrees towards innovations that will make the world a better place, I just need a little help to make it happen. Drexel is a challenging environment, ten week terms can really take their toll, and paying for it isn’t exactly easy either, being that it is the most expensive school in Pennsylvania. As a student who is responsible for paying for my tuition, books, and daily expenses I find myself in a consistent need for money, so any scholarship I can obtain would be very helpful towards my educational pursuits.
I am an extremely driven individual who has always worked hard for everything that I have. From my childhood growing up on a farm in Lancaster Pennsylvania, where my enduring work ethic originates from; to my job as a Ride Lead at Hershey Park and throughout my various Co-ops, where my leadership and teamwork skills were sharpened, I have always done my best to succeed in every way possible. Furthermore, since deciding to pursue engineering in my educational endeavors, I have learned coding, refined my math skills, and sharpened my engineering thought process. For my freshman design project, my team developed an autonomous intersection, based off a queuing system, that guided robotic cars through an intersection without collisions.
At my first Co-op with AT&T, as a self-imposed challenge, I taught myself how to code macros in VBA to automate updates for cell tower data tracking sheets. Through this experience I was also exposed to knowledge of Radio Frequency, Cellular Networks, and Antenna Systems. My next Co-op was at the Hershey Company in their Technical Center of Excellence where I researched and developed new technologies and standards to implement in the various factories. The majority of my contributions were in robotics and automation implementations, and working with process controls such as Programmable Logic Controllers, Human Machine Interfaces, and ladder logic to automate processes in Hershey’s Facilities. Currently I am on my third and final Co-op, I work for BMW in the Information Technology, Innovation, and Research Center in South Carolina. I assist engineers and data scientist in creating models and prototypes for new innovative ideas and technologies. I am currently working on a Deep Learning model to develop a computer vision systems that identifies labels and reads bar codes. So far all my experiences in engineering have been very diverse, but I think that's what makes the co-op experience all worthwhile. So far there hasn't been a part of engineering that I haven't liked; it's hard, challenging, and at the end of the day I'm learning skills that will help me improve technology and consequentially the world.
One of the things that I love about engineering is that it teaches how to learn, not only that but it teaches that there is always something more to learn. Even when you think you have mastered a subject, you have really only begun to fathom the very essence of that topic. Learning knew things presents me with a constant challenge, and I enjoy coming up with creative and innovative ways to apply my technical knowledge in order to overcome challenges. What I truly desire to do as an engineer is to apply my technical knowledge to solve problems, and overcome obstacles to achieve the impossible.