Not many engineers credit their career choice to an inspiring work of art, but for Khalid Hachil (M.S. ’19), it was a movie that made the difference. “I was trying to decide what to do with my skills in math and science when I saw a movie called Swades,” he remembers. The film is about an Indian man who lives in America and works for NASA. When he returns to India, he sees a village with no power or electricity, and it sets him on a mission. “His quest to bring this village electricity helps him see the true impact it has on people’s lives,” says Hachil. “Access to electricity affects women’s rights, food access, sanitation. By the time the credits were rolling, I said, ‘I want to be an electrical engineer.’”

Since graduating from New York Tech with a master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering, Hachil has been hard at work applying his skills and dreams in various capacities. “Luckily for me, I’m not limited to a specific sector and can design for any kind of project,” he says. Hachil is an electrical engineer at Stantec, a sustainable engineering, architecture, and environmental consulting company. He works on diverse projects in multiple industries, including commercial, healthcare, pharmaceutical, military, and transportation. “Anything regarding power, I’m working on it.”

Not content with fulfilling only his dreams, Hachil spends significant time helping other engineers succeed. He is an instructor for Kaplan, an educational services company that helps people prepare for various exams, and he consults with Prosple, a platform that helps students and graduates find career and study opportunities. Using his experience and insight, he works with engineering students, counseling them on how to break into the industry. “Electrical engineering is such an important industry, and yet it has one of the highest dropout rates,” he explains. “It’s one of the hardest industries to break into and one of the hardest degrees to get. At the same time, technology is getting more difficult, so we can’t dilute the courses or make them easier.”

Hachil’s superlative work and commitment to the industry have not gone unnoticed. He recently received the 2024 New York Society of Professional Engineers Young Engineer of the Year Award, 2024 Long Island Business News Rising Star in Engineering Award, 2024 National Society of Professional Engineers Emerging Leader, and 2024 Electrical Construction & Maintenance magazine 30 Under 30 All Star Award, among others. Hahcil applied to be a mentor in the university’s Alumni Mentorship Program and hopes to bring his passion and expertise back to New York Tech. “I believe we need to push people to excel more and provide them with more resources to do so,” says Hachil, who sees traditional professions like engineering and teaching shrinking in the age of content creation. “We need to help students who want to focus on careers that give back to society, and engineering is one of them.”

By Alix Sobler