Benjamin Taylor: Professor in Training

Benjamin Taylor is a fifth year Electrical Engineering major at UVic. Benjamin has spent the last four years working hard to achieve his academic goals while participating in four Co-op terms. In 2010 he was named Co-op Student of the Year for the Engineering and Computer Science/Math Co-op. Benjamin is a good example of how hard work and dedication can take a student far.
  
Tell me a bit about your Co-op terms?

I had done my first one with the Canadian Coast Guard in Vancouver, and my second and fourth ones with RIM (Research In Motion), the guys that make BlackBerry, in Waterloo, Ontario. And my third one I did here at UVic working as a researcher.
 
What were you researching at UVic?
 
I was working on biophotonics. It’s the study of really small particles using photonic resonators.
 
 
How did your Co-ops help determine what you want to do after university?
 
Because we have four Co-ops I wanted to try really different ones. So I tried one working for the government, I tried one working in the private sector, and then I figured I would try one at UVic, just to see what I liked. It really helped me pick what I wanted to do. There’s no way I would have known that I liked research unless I had been given the opportunity to do it in one of my Co-ops.
 
 
 What are your academic goals?

Up until third year my goal was just to finish my bachelor’s in Engineering and then work. I thought I was going to be in the communications field, but after my third Co-op I decided that I really, really liked doing research. I’ve decided that I want to go to grad school now.
 

Which schools did you apply to?
 
I applied to MIT, Stanford, UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles), Berkley, Carnegie Mellon, Caltech and Harvard. The way they do it down in the states is photonics is kind of a mixed field, so it’s Applied Psychics/Engineering.
 
When you’re done your master’s, what career do you see yourself having?
 
I think I’m going to be a professor and do research as a profession.
 
Would you teach in the States or come back to Canada?
 
I would probably want to come back. It’s hard to say. It kinda depends on who you meet while you’re going to school and the kind of connections you make. I’m not a hundred percent, pretty much wherever I end up [depends on] who I meet and who I end up collaborating with.

What is your advice to Engineering students?
 
If you ever take a class that has more than one section, so there’s two professors that are teaching it, make sure you have a friend in the other class and you know what they cover. Both the professors go to make the test, so if you’ve only been going to your section of the class and you’ve only had the one professors side of it you’re gonna miss out on some of things and you’re not going to do very well.