Business and Industry | StudentsMarch 18, 2025

Field Trip Offers Insight to Engineering Careers

Written By: Ian Silvester

Students from the UAFS Institution of Electronics and Electrical Engineering (IEEE) chapter and professional IEEE members from Northwest Arkansas recently visited the James W. Trimble Lock and Dam in Barling, Arkansas. They received a behind-the-scenes look at how the dam operates and how an educational background in engineering relates to it.

For Tobey Yu, a junior electrical engineering major, the trip was his second to Lock and Dam 13 – as it’s also known. As a first-year student, the trip provided Tobey with a look at how to apply his education toward a career.

“It reframed my thinking about power and what it is. After that trip, I geared my classes toward these options,” Tobey said.

As president of the UAFS IEEE chapter, he wanted his fellow students to have a similar experience.

“[Electrical engineering] isn’t all about electronics. This trip was a way for us to learn how water is turned into electricity and see power on a smaller scale,” he explained.

The IEEE group met with Lock and Dam 13 engineers on the trip and toured the facility's inner workings. They could touch and interact with the machines that turn water from the Arkansas River into power and saw how the lock operates, allowing cargo to navigate the river.

The James W. Trimble Lock and Dam was commissioned in 1969 and is one of 21 dams in Sebastian County. It is a federally regulated hydroelectric dam overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. For more information, visit the National Inventory of Dams website: https://nid.sec.usace.army.mil/#/dams/system/AR00163/summary.

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