🚀 2018 Year in Review — Civil Engineering, Design, & Next?!

I am making an effort to write this year in review after getting my inspiration from my awesome brother-in-law, Ahmad Awais. As he writes:

2018 was an incredible year for me, both personally and professionally. I am writing this year in review to fight with my imposter syndrome, to hold myself accountable, to keep a log of what I do, and to see how I improve myself as an engineer & designer over the years.

🤔 Who is Maham Batool?

At the end of every year, I try to redefine to myself who am I.

Hi, I’m Maham Batool, I am studying to be a Civil Engineer, aspiring Architect, and an Interior Designer, Published Author, Speaker, and Blogger.

👩‍💻 My Online Presence

In 2018, I traveled to many countries, but the one that made a massive impact on my personal and professional life was my visit to Qatar. My stay in Qatar made me realize that I am capable of doing many things apart from studies (AH).

One thing I forgot to mention is that I belong to a family of engineers more than 20 including my father, siblings, brothers in law, cousins, and more. In Qatar, few of them were accompanying me.

There I got a chance to visit different engineering and design companies because of which my interest in entrepreneurial activities peaked. This side of mine was explored by my brother-in-law Ahmad Awais who helped me a lot.

😫 Urgh Writing?! Exactly my reaction when I hear the word, but now not really. I started writing on Medium, and this helped me overcome my fear of expressing myself loud and clear.

🎯 I started enjoying writing, but I also wanted to do something else apart from this. I wanted to start my venture. This gave me an idea about House of Panache.

🏡 House Of Panache

Like I mentioned before that I am an aspiring interior designer, this gave me an idea of my startup by the name House of Panache. Funny name No?! I started writing articles about interior designing under this name and got featured at NoteWorthy Magazine.

🎓 Got Featured

Soon my efforts got pace and people started recognizing my work. A huge confidence boost came in the form when my very own entrepreneurial venture’s article (House of Panache) got published and featured in the Noteworthy — The Journal Blog.

This made me believe that whatever I am doing is set in the right direction and I must continue doing this for something big in life.

✅ My Blog (Personal Branding)

The next big step for me was setting up my own personal website/blog which is not an accustomed attribute for a Civil Engineer. My awesome brother-in-law Ahmad Awais was super helpful in setting my website from purchasing the domain name to web hosting and site setup.

🎉 Yay!!! I finally have an online presence against my name which is super awesome. I’ve started writing on my website. The start is always hard, but once you work hard, you can achieve milestones.

✍️ Blogging is something I take as my hobby. Like I said before, I always wanted to do extraordinary stuff. I like experimenting with different things because right now I don’t know which thing is going to work for me. To sum it up, I am exploring all my options.

The hectic life of university doesn’t allow me to do much, but still, I somehow manage to take out time for my side projects and learnings. After going through all my schedule, I’ve decided to give 10 hours every week to improving and enhancing my skills.

🎯 For this reason, I met an extremely competent mentor — Engr. Ubaid Ahmad Mughal— who does the kind of work that I intend to do. Oh did I mention that he too is a blogger and an entrepreneur ✔? His website CivilEngineersPK.com is a great resource not only for Civil Engineers but also for Architects. Under his apprenticeship, I am learning a lot about civil engineering and design.

On his and my Brother Usman Sheikh’s (Highway Engineer) advice, I started writing review articles.

1️⃣ Plastic Roads — A Revolutionary Step Towards New Beginning

2️⃣ The World of BIM | Building Information Modeling

3️⃣ Sustainable or Green Building | Prefabricated Modular Buildings

SPEAKING

I love to talk, and I am what they call a social animal. Conferences, monthly meetups, brain dump, yeah that’s me.

👩‍🏫 Held My Very First Workshop

My love for talking made me present my very first workshop. My workshop was about Basics of Autocad, and it was a paid workshop. Dr. Aziz Akbar (Chairman Civil Engineering Department, UET LHR), Engr. Muhammad Hussain (Civil Engineer, Professional Engineer-P.E.C), Engr. Ubaid Ahmad Mughal (Civil Engineer, Lecturer UET Lahore & the man behind CivilEngineersPK.com), Engr. Usman Sheikh (Highway Engineer, Qatar), Ahmad Awais (Full-time OpenSourcerer, JavaScript Developer Advocate), Meadah Batool (WordPress Core Contributor, OpenSourceress & Content Strategist), Samreen Malik (Civil Engineer & Lecturer UET Lahore), Ezzah Rasheed & Kinza Najeeb were a few people who helped me present my first workshop.

My audience was female students mainly from Civil Engineering, Architecture, Architectural Engineering & Town Planning.

You can read the details of my workshop on AutoCAD →

🤔 What’s Next?!

Like I said I don’t know what will work for me so at the moment trying everything that I like. So, here’s what my tentative plan for 2019 looks like:

• 🚀 I am super excited to share with you that soon I will start working on my very first research paper. Right now I can’t reveal the details before things get finalized but just to give you a brief idea the area of research will be a related sub-field of Civil Engineering.
• ✅ I am learning new software that will help enhance my design skills. My prime focus will revolve around polishing my skills in 3Ds Max & AutoD after which I’ll explore other options.
• ⚡️After presenting my first workshop, I’ve started working on the contents of my next workshop. It was a great experience and I am looking forward to yet another jam-packed session.
• 🤞Meanwhile, if I get time after all the above-mentioned chores I might start with online teaching. Ssshhh… Fingers Crossed!

So, it’s a wrap. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it and if my journey has inspired you in any way then feel free to Tweet about it and share across your social media profiles. In the interim, if you have any feedback or queries you can post your comments below or reach out to me through my contact form.

Peace! ✌️