Master’s Degrees at Work: Bringing Work to School to Solve Real-World Challenges

Dupri Grimes was in high school when he built his first robot in a robotics class. He had made a Lego NXT that was programmable using JAVA and could drive with a remote control. He said it was a foot by foot and a half and the motor was the size of his hand. It was white and orange with an arm on top that could swing around. The purpose of this robot?

To be the best battle robot in the class.

“I liked designing the robot and just being able to make something from scratch and have it fill a purpose that you wanted to do- like to fight each other,” Grimes said. “Through that robots class, I got interested and wanted to learn more about engineering.”

Dupri Grimes

Now Grimes is an automation engineer for SitePro, an organization that provides turnkey, internet-based solutions for managing data and automation for infrastructure and industrial control systems. He runs automation controls for different types of water systems for oilfields, municipalities and farms. Grimes received his master’s in electrical engineering from Texas State University in 2023 while working full time at SitePro.

Grimes earned his undergraduate degree in engineering science, which offered a broad scope of engineering topics from mechanical, electrical and chemical. He said he always planned to get a master’s degree because he wanted to get a deeper understanding of electrical engineering.

“I think it was good because I got a huge foundation of the different types of engineering, which is something engineers don’t typically get,” Grimes said of his education. “Getting a master’s in electrical engineering really helped me a lot in my career because most of the work I do is in that area.”

Grimes said working full-time while getting his master’s degree was hard, but he had a lot of support from his bosses who, having already been through school, gave advice on what electives he should take. He was also able to apply what he was learning in school to his job in real time and was able to bring his questions from work to school.

“In my wireless communications class, I actually brought in one of our radios to show the configuration and software, and our professor actually walked me through every single setting and what each one did,” Grimes said.

Grimes said experiences like these were extremely impactful in helping him build new skills for his job. He describes how many of the oil and gas facilities he works at rely heavily on wireless communications to function and for communication. He said that sometimes the signals get jumbled up and they won’t know why, but now he is able to help troubleshoot those issues for their clients.

“We had a radio out in one of our facilities in Ohio. I asked them to explain to me what was between the two radios and they said a power line had just been installed between them. I was able to determine that the reason why those radios weren’t working was because the power line had too much power going through it, and it was disturbing the radio signal,” Grimes said. “We were able to send them a proposal for a new system and get them a new option that uses cell networks instead.”

Another example is from a water quality management class that he took because of the work he does for municipalities and their water systems. He took the class because he wanted to learn issues that cities face when it comes to monitoring water and working in water treatment plants.

“That class taught us why they use certain processes on the water treatment plants, so I was able to go back to the water treatment plant and have better conversations with clients about the engineering side and what they will need and what we can do,” Grimes said.

He said the class has also allowed him to contribute to his employers’ brainstorming meetings about the water quality services they provide, and what different options they can provide to their clients.

“It’s been an interesting class and helped me see that because every city has a different water source, they have a different water treatment process,” Grimes said. “It helps us understand why each city makes these different decisions on what equipment and processes they’re going to use.”

Grimes was also prepared for new areas of scientific innovation. In a class on artificial intelligence for engineering applications, he trained an AI model to recognize objects and learn the difference between trucks and people and where they are located. One day at work, he visited one of his water-system clients who had a break in the previous night. After talking with the client and viewing their surveillance footage, he got the idea to create an AI program that would monitor the camera footage. If it recognizes a person during hours when people shouldn’t be there, it could then alert the police and the client. Grimes also sees other ways using an AI program like this could increase safety.

“In Texas we have crazy thunderstorms and in August of 2021, lightening hit a gas and oil facility, and it blew up,” Grimes said. “I want to use an AI program to detect when there is lightening from the security cameras so we can alert the facility to keep an eye out or to evacuate people in case lightening strikes. We can use this to remotely monitor facilities for safety purposes.”

Grimes said that working full time while getting his master’s made easier because he was able to tie so much of what he was learning to his job, especially when he could bring his work problems to class.

He said he really enjoyed his education at Texas State University and that all of his professors were excellent and always available to help him when he needed them. He feels that his experience was impactful.

“I think getting a master’s degree is 100 percent worth the costs. From a professional standpoint, it’s really helped me out in my job, and I’ve been able to help our customers a lot more.”