Master Flo Senior Design Engineer Yan Klyashitsky highlights his profession at son’s career day
Kids love to build things. So, when the kindergarten class at Neil M. Ross Catholic Elementary School in St. Albert got the chance to meet a professional designer of things that get built, they were quite excited.
“There were a couple kids who said that they want to be an engineer (when they grow up),” said Master Flo Senior Design Engineer Yan Klyashitsky about the aftereffects of his participation at his son Aleksy’s career day. “I mean at that age, that’s surprising, I think I wanted to be a fireman or a policeman.”
Funny enough, the kindergartners had just previously been visited by a real-life fireman ahead of Klyashitsky’s turn to talk about his career. The firefighting hero even gave each kid their own fire truck as a parting gift following his presentation.
When Klyashitsky heard about that, he knew he had to step up his game.
“Honestly, my plan was just to walk in and talk, but then when I realized that this is a little bit more than that, I had to do a little bit more prework,” explained Klyashitsky. “Which was a good idea, because I think the kids enjoyed it a lot more this way.”
Part of that prework involved tapping Master Flo Administrative Assistant Alanna Burwash to see what idea she might have up her sleeve for besting Mr. Fireman and his fire trucks.
It turns out she had a good one: to make Engineer in Training badges for each child with their own name on it.
“That was definitely a hit,” said Klyashitsky.
One of the EIT badges Alanna Burwash made for Yan Klyashitsky’s career day presentation at his son’s school. This specific one was made for Yan’s other son so he wouldn’t feel left out. (Alanna Burwash)
In addition to the badges, Klyashitsky brought in some Master Flo 3D models, high viz vests, and hard hats to make the experience more interactive for the kids and, most importantly from an HSE standpoint, safe.
“It’s a kindergarten so I was trying to keep it simpler,” laughed Klyashitsky.
With the main goal of career day at his son’s school being to explain how the various careers spotlighted by the parents participating impact society, Klyashitsky says he took a more general approach to filling the kids in on what his profession entails.
“I just kind of explained to them what an engineer career would be,” said Klyashitsky. “The simple fact is we create and build things.”
While the topic of oil and gas is hard to grasp for those who are five and six, Klyashitsky did touch on it briefly during his trip to his son’s class, mentioning that engineers help build the industry and get our important natural resources out of the ground for us to use.
But Klyashitsky said describing how an engineer helps build a school or road, per se, is a little more tangible for the young minds to understand.
It also helped that they had an engineering project of their own on the go to illustrate just what an engineer does.
“The teacher was saying that they have sort of like a science class and they were building some kind of a wall or something out of just paper cups,” said Klyashitsky. “So there was an application there that at least I tried to tie together a little bit.”
In the hot seat
The kids came armed with some good questions for Klyashitsky too, like what he’s most proud of about his job.
“I kind of covered some of our subsea world and explained a little bit of what we do here, putting equipment down subsea to make sure that it’s safe and reliable.”
Then they wanted to know what makes a good engineer.
“I explained to them that you need to think outside the box, work well with a team, make sure that you can boil down complicated tasks into little tasks, because otherwise it’ll just get too cumbersome.”
Then there were a few questions out of left field, along with a bit of oversharing.
“Some of the questions were interesting, some of the comments were just kind of different,” relayed Klyashitsky with a laugh. “It’s just definitely all honesty at that age.”
When all was said and done, Klyashitsky said getting the chance to watch his son interact with his classmates beforehand was his favourite part of participating in career day.
“I don’t really see him in his school environment and that was a great experience to see him playing and working with all the other kids,” shared Klyashitsky. “It’s definitely rewarding.”
Yan and his son Aleksy pose for a photo during career day at Aleksy’s school.
Like father, like son
And how did little Aleksy feel about having his dad come and talk to his class?
“He said he was really happy that I was there, I think it was a great experience for him too.”
One that had Aleksy emulating dad in the days after.
“I definitely noticed my son building the next couple days a lot more, like buildings and things, so he was excited.”
As were the rest of the children, thanks to Klyashitsky and the help he had from Burwash.
“Hopefully it sparked a little bit of curiosity for engineering, and as much for firefighters,” joked the senior design engineer.
Being the little builders that they are, we’re sure it did.