Sara Gould, Deaf Engineer

Back in ninth grade, Sara Gould was trying to decide between becoming a musician or an engineer.   She enjoyed playing the saxophone.  She also enjoyed math and science—and envisioned someday designing roller coaster.

 Then almost overnight, Sara ended up with a sudden, severe hearing loss in both ears, most likely due to a virus.  

“The ENT actually told my parents that I might be faking it to get attention,” Sara recalled.

It was two months before Sara was fitted with hearing aids and went back to school.   She relied on classmates to take notes with carbon paper and she collected those at the end of every class.   “I had an FM system, but I never liked it because I had to go to the Health office to pick it up and it wasn’t good for class discussions,” said Sara.  An itinerant teacher worked with her once a week to practice lipreading skills.

“I think I blocked most of high school out of my mind,” Sara said with a smile. 

A major turning point was the day that her audiologist introduced her to Rochester Institute of Technology and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf in New York.  Sara went to visit the campus and immediately she knew that she wanted to attend college there.   “NTID was great, because even though I had to explain that I didn’t know sign language, I never had to explain my hearing loss to people who had never met anyone deaf,” said Sara.  “That was true of RIT too.  There was such a high level of awareness there.”

After graduating with an Mechanical Engineering degree in 2002, Sara went to work for three different companies.  She went on to obtain her Masters degree in Systems Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology.  Today, she works as a Project Engineer for a company that welds ship interiors.   “The engineers here mostly design and manage the projects,” Sara explained.  “I work in the testing lab, doing medium-weight shock testing of desks, furniture, lockers, etc.”

Sara records information from shock testing to determine how much shock an item can withstand if a ship were hit by a torpedo.   Using videos and photos, Sara writes up reports on her findings.   “When I take notes from a test, I have to make sure I get everyone’s input in case I missed something they were discussing.  But being in charge of notes makes it easier for me to be assertive about getting the information I need.”

Sara found another trick to help her obtain information during group meetings:  she would snap pictures of anything written or drawn on the board and use the photos as notes.

“At one of my previous jobs, there were meetings all the time and I was left out of most of them,” said Sara.  “For trainings or a really big meeting, I would try and get CART (Real Time Captioning).”

Sara also runs her own business converting slides into movies:  Slides in a Flash.  And as for that path to becoming a musician, Sara is glad that she didn’t listen to the ENT who cautioned her back in high school not to play in the band for fear of making her hearing worse.   Today, she plays saxophone along with 80 others for the Charlottesville Municipal Band.

“The average age of everyone in my band is about 50.  They all claim to be deaf too,” she said with a chuckle.

Update: Sara left her job to open her own business: In a Flash Engraving