What is the job like?

Data10
Sat, 25 May 2013 01:54:45 +0000

How much is the job like school? Does any of the stuff learned in school apply? I feel like a lot of this analysis and stuff is not useful.

The answer varies tremendously depending on your field of study and your job. A few differences I noted after starting my first full time EE-related job after graduating are below. I could list many more.


The vast majority of my college classes were not relevant to my job at all. A few classes fit exactly, and I’d use a few topics covered in others, but I have not used >90% of the information from my college classes (I am not including general abilities used in all eng classes, like problem solving). Instead I learned most of what I needed to know through experience on the job.
The types of problems solved are very different. In college, that vast majority of problems could be solved quickly, and I knew that the problem was set up in such a way that it could be solved quickly using information from the textbook. At my job, problems were more likely to be a part of a large project that takes months to complete. Solving some problems may require background knowledge that you, as a new grad, do not have. You may need to find a new and original approach that has not been done before. Some problems may not have an acceptable solution at all.
My workload on the job was much lighter than in college, with different hours. My college work was spread out in brief periods throughout the day and night on both weekdays and weekends, while my job was limited to specific hours on M-F.
The motivation and reward system is different. In college, there are usually simple and straightforward goals and measures, with predictable feedback and benefits – for example take specific classes, get specific grades, then apply to grad school or job. If you put in extra time and effort, you can easily predict and see the benefits. In work, it’s more maybe you might get a benefit in the future if you put in a lot of extra effort, or maybe you won’t, or maybe you’ll only get a benefit if you talk with your manager, …
In work there is wider distribution of backgrounds and skill sets who all must work together on a project, instead of a college class where the people working on group projects usually all have a similar background. The group dynamics and chain of command also differs.