A Self-exploration in Arizona, the U.S.

— Fu-Jung Liu, Architectural Engineer, Civil & Building Engineering Department, CTCI Corporation

Could you briefly tell us about yourself?

What made you join CTCI?

One of my best friends recommended me to apply for a job position at CTCI’s Civil & Building Engineering Department. She told me that CTCI is the largest Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) services provider in Taiwan. They have projects all over the world and provide opportunities to work overseas. I decided that it was worth giving the job opportunity a shot and applied for the Architectural Engineer position.

Could you give us some examples of the foreign culture and people that impress you during your stay (when being relocated)?

The current project we are working on is a CTCIA-AUSTIN Joint Venture project. Since my contract is with general construction (GC1), I had to work under Austin Commercial. The situation was really bad in the beginning, because I didn’t have any BIM experience before. However, I feel lucky and glad that the people I met here are willing to share their experience and help train me. They taught me not only how to solve technical issues itself, but also showed me how to collaborate with other people in this project.

Due to certain ambiguity of the contract, some project scope is not clear-cut, a lot of people call each other out, but that didn’t necessarily solve the problem or make them proactively problem-solve. However, my instructors from CTICA and AUSTIN here taught me how to appropriately help other people solve problems and face difficulties in a positive and effective way. They show me how joint ventures operate between two companies.

How do you get rid of work stress?

I explored America with my friends and colleagues during annual leave and national holidays to go visit lots of cities and national parks.

The national parks and landscapes were amazing and breath-taking. After these kinds of trips, I feel like nothing is impossible and that I’ve been rejuvenated and ready to do more work.

Could you share some interesting experiences you had when working in CTCI?

For a period of time in Taiwan, our Architectural team worked overtime until midnight, and we needed to take a taxi together, because public transportation would be already closed. I never had an experience staying with colleagues 16 hours a day for at least three consecutive months. I’m thankful for the project to give me the chance of having this special experience when working in CTCI.