FutureAmerican
Materials
- Jul 20, 2008
- 15
Hi all,
(I'm posting a background of myself here first, if you just want to read the CAD stuff, skip to the end)
It's been a while since I posted on here - my background in summary is that I graduated from Imperial College London with a Bachelor's in Materials Science/Engineering, working in a Project Engineer capacity for a small Oil&Gas Company, mainly doing Project Management type work with MS Project, some procurement/budgeting, and some welding procedure qualifications.
I moved out to the US in 2007, made the mistake of not finding new Engineering work as I wanted to go in a different direction (Law Enforcement), unfortunately that didn't work out so well, but I went back into Oil&Gas Engineering in 2008 - I was on a good training program but the sector collapsed where I was and so I wound up working as a Hospital Security Guard. That's been my sector for 2 1/2 years now, although I'm now a Supervisor so we're just about covering the bills.
I enlisted into the Army National Guard last year, am currently in an Infantry platoon, and should be going to OCS next year (incidentally, Infantry and Airborne School is a great way to remind yourself things can always be worse - sleeping outside in a rainstorm or jumping out of a plane!). Although I might choose Corps or Engineers or Signal as my Officer Branch, at the end of the day I'm planning on using the education benefits as the primary way of furthering my civilian career, along with the contacts I've been making at the unit.
Now onto the CAD stuff - through a contact, I'm currently under consideration for a possible Engineering job, initially part time, eventually full time. My duties would be a combination of CAD work, GD&T, and Materials selection. As part of my preparation I got myself a copy of TurboCAD 18 (The program they are using for their designs), and have been working through the tutorials. My contact has recommended I build a "portfolio" of CAD work for the potential employer, and was wondering what the best way is I can go about doing this, since I'm not currently employed in any technical capacity? I've thought of emailing my Lt at the unit and seeing if I can help with things like drawing building plans for Urban Ops etc, finding personal projects to do like making a plan of my house etc. If anyone has any further suggestions I'd be more than happy to hear them.
Finally I would also like to mention that I have applied for at least a couple of hundred Engineering jobs since 2008 with no success - I have had my Resume evaluated multiple times by different people, have been attending job fairs etc, but this is the closest I've come to anything in 2 1/2 years!
(I'm posting a background of myself here first, if you just want to read the CAD stuff, skip to the end)
It's been a while since I posted on here - my background in summary is that I graduated from Imperial College London with a Bachelor's in Materials Science/Engineering, working in a Project Engineer capacity for a small Oil&Gas Company, mainly doing Project Management type work with MS Project, some procurement/budgeting, and some welding procedure qualifications.
I moved out to the US in 2007, made the mistake of not finding new Engineering work as I wanted to go in a different direction (Law Enforcement), unfortunately that didn't work out so well, but I went back into Oil&Gas Engineering in 2008 - I was on a good training program but the sector collapsed where I was and so I wound up working as a Hospital Security Guard. That's been my sector for 2 1/2 years now, although I'm now a Supervisor so we're just about covering the bills.
I enlisted into the Army National Guard last year, am currently in an Infantry platoon, and should be going to OCS next year (incidentally, Infantry and Airborne School is a great way to remind yourself things can always be worse - sleeping outside in a rainstorm or jumping out of a plane!). Although I might choose Corps or Engineers or Signal as my Officer Branch, at the end of the day I'm planning on using the education benefits as the primary way of furthering my civilian career, along with the contacts I've been making at the unit.
Now onto the CAD stuff - through a contact, I'm currently under consideration for a possible Engineering job, initially part time, eventually full time. My duties would be a combination of CAD work, GD&T, and Materials selection. As part of my preparation I got myself a copy of TurboCAD 18 (The program they are using for their designs), and have been working through the tutorials. My contact has recommended I build a "portfolio" of CAD work for the potential employer, and was wondering what the best way is I can go about doing this, since I'm not currently employed in any technical capacity? I've thought of emailing my Lt at the unit and seeing if I can help with things like drawing building plans for Urban Ops etc, finding personal projects to do like making a plan of my house etc. If anyone has any further suggestions I'd be more than happy to hear them.
Finally I would also like to mention that I have applied for at least a couple of hundred Engineering jobs since 2008 with no success - I have had my Resume evaluated multiple times by different people, have been attending job fairs etc, but this is the closest I've come to anything in 2 1/2 years!