General Engineering Advice

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>This is not aimed at anything anyone said here on the boards or anyone in particular on this site. This is coming from my personal experiences as an Engineering Manager and as a ChemE with over 12 years of experience troubleshooting and designing complex biotech processes. For those who care, here is some advice, some of which may applicable in your college years.</p>

<p>Humility: Recently, past 2 years or so, I have noticed that every young engineer (<5 years) I meet has a superiority complex. I have no idea where this comes from, and I don’t really care. You will win no friends if you feel that you are better than others and so long as you act that way you will never be able to be worked with. Do what you are told, do it eagerly, and you will be given more responsibility. In the end you will be able to prove that you know better instead of just telling everyone that you know better. Also, you’ll be surprised at the opinion people will have of you if you ask questions, learn, and ask more questions.</p>

<p>Work Ethic: I don’t care if it takes you 3 hours or 10 hours to do a task. I do, however, care if you are only at work for 3 hours in a day, come and go as you please, and have no regard for the clock or the others you work with who live by it. If you only need 3 hours to do your work than find something else to do, ask for more work, and show that you are capable of more.</p>

<p>Learn: Despite your superiority complex and despite the fact that the whole world loves you, you do not know everything. Whether it be technical, social, or practical, I am sure you are lacking somewhere. If you weren’t lacking you’d be the supreme overlord of everything. So, never stop learning. You may not need to work on your weakness, nor care to, than strengthen your strength. This ties in to Humility, if you can’t admit that you are lacking you will never improve yourself.</p>

<p>Salesmanship: You may not think you are a salesman, but you are. You are selling yourself, your ideas, and your services as an employee or to your customer. Self marketing is key, and learning how to win people to your way of thinking is more critical than you may think.</p>

<p>Compete: It IS a competition, if you don’t think it is you will lose. You are competing with your coworkers to be better than them, if you aren’t than you will be in the same position you are now and they will be your boss.</p>

<p>Mentor: Find a mentor, someone who will help you direct your path. This should be someone older and in a position to help, meaning they should be where you want to go. I see a lot of young engineers not doing this, these engineers will become obsolete very quickly. I almost wrote this one as “kissing up”, but thought this route might make it seem less aristrocratic.</p>

<p>Presentation: Even if you don’t write for work, learn. An ability to put things into words demonstrates your ability to communicate, a skill that is always in short supply. Also, learn to present your ideas, either through practice at work or through organizations like Toastmaster. You should be eager to take up the marker and draw out the idea or game plan, being willing to do so will get you tagged as a leader.</p>

<p>Diversify: When projects are being handed out try and get a little of everything, even if it is just once. While you may not need to know a certain field or department a project there can give you a good idea on how to utilize them, as well as get you connected in a positive way. You will work with many departments, if you have a project that they have a stake in and you execute it well they will love you, and your job will become easier.</p>

<p>That’s all for now… feel free to disguss and/or critique. As I said, this isn’t aimed at anyone, these are just some general observation of engineers I have in my life and role.</p>

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<p>Wow! You stole my exact concerns ;)</p>

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<p>Excellent post! Every new engineer should read this. Old engineers like me, too! Salesmanship and presentation are the areas in which I need to improve. I wish I had read this 25 years ago, seriously.</p>

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<p>Thanks this is really helpful!</p>

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<p>I think this applies to all fields, not just engineering.</p>

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<p>Respectfully added:</p>

<p>Collaboration: The whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts. Learn to be a team member and possibly a leader by studying the dynamics of individuals working towards a common goal.</p>

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<p>Good stuff. Thank you.</p>

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<p>Thank you for the advice.</p>

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<p>StitchInTime, I thought about that one while I was reading the part about competition. I understand that it is ultimately a competition, but my personal belief is that a lot of American businesses fail because they can’t get their employees working together for the common good, and instead end up driving each other down.</p>

<p>Look at the Mavericks vs. Heat situation as an example.</p>

<p>I think if young employees can see the big picture and do what they can to make the whole team better off, then they will not only advance in their career, but feel good doing it. Hopefully I’m not just being naive.</p>

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<p>Japher:</p>

<p>While the qualities you list are trivially positive qualities which all individuals should aspire to possess, I think the real message is much less helpful. I suppose what I’m getting at is that there are lots of other qualities which are just as positive, which everbody should work on (as, it would seem, should you). Nobody’s perfect, after all.</p>

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<p>I am a strong believer in and practicioner of what I call “group think”, which takes a page from collaboration for sure.</p>

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<p>I think you, Immotion, are correct. My observations on competition are not to discourage team play but to encourage people to the best at what they do. Everyone has a role and show play it to the best of their abilities. I think a lot of companies fail not because they can’t get their employees to work together, but because they have mediocre employees who think they can do someone elses job better than their own. Much of what I see right now is a blase attitude towards the task at hand.</p>

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<p>For sure. I am merely reflecting on what I see in engineering fields. There is a certain mentality, ability, and philosphy that almost all engineers posses. These qualities may seem trivial and common sensical, but it’s the part of common sense I see a lot of engineers lacking in. You are not going to get ahead in life merely because you do your job well.</p>

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Call me a skeptic, but I doubt that only engineers - particularly only young engineers - suffer from a lack of humility, work-ethic, willingness to engage in lifelong learning, salesmanship, competitive spirit, etc. These seem to be to be traits that many people possess. I’m also hesitant to endorse the idea that possessing any number of positive character traits is a recipe for success; they certainly aren’t sufficient, and I wonder whether they’re necessary.</p>

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It’s not a bad place to start, though. On a more serious note, perhaps a simpler solution for some individuals is to simply reevaluate the wisdom of spending their lives trying to “get ahead”.</p>