Learning curve 1

[APH]

In the practical/industrial world experiences, what would be an engineer's learning curve looks like. At what stage does an engineer stop/start to slow down learning process. I know that this is very subjective to the engineer/s goal, character, etc.

For those of you who has tons of experiences, how do you keep yourself motivated to learn or to ask question?

Just curious,

APH

 

[SlideRuleEra]

APH - That's an interesting question. I have been practicing engineering for 34 years and have worked in four totally different fields during that time. In each case, about two years seems to about the length of time I needed to accumulate a reasonable amount of proficiency in the new field. The learning process is "cummulative" and it has been a big help to look for similarities and analogies between fields - if you look, there are a lot of them - no matter how different the fields.

How to stay motivated? For me, that just happens, a lifelong personality trait I suppose (as a boy, I would pull out a volume of an encyclopedia, at random, and read it - just like a novel). Teaching continuing education courses, which I started doing part time last year, is a good avenue - preparation for a course, from scratch, is a real challenge. The challenge is to take "something" that you understand and "boil it down" into a form that can be communicated effectively.

 

[ctopher]

If it is a job you love, you will be motivated at some level to always ask questions and learn as much as possible. It is natural for most professions.

 

[epoisses]

Leave your office, go out in the plant, visit the places you never go, go talk with operators, mechanics, but also the accounting dept, the purchasing people, the sales guys, contractors... The more you know, the further you have to go (physically, mentally) to learn new things.
If you sit at your desk and do your job strictly by email, your learning curve will flatten. (Although I must say one can learn a whole lot surfing the net...)
It's a matter of taste.

 

[HgTX]

I think it took me about a year and a half to feel fairly functional in my job. All that means is a certain comfort level; I've been here 5 years and I still feel like I Do Not Know Anything. Which is safer than feeling like I know everything. At least now I know who to ask.

Everything I know I've heard someone say--by sitting in meetings, eavesdropping, or just wandering into someone's office and and asking what's up. I've accumulated many little bits of information this way, and I've greatly expanded my circle of people to ask when I don't know. I've been through some formal training but classroom stuff never sinks in any more. It's the things I stumble across in context that I retain. The trick is to put myself within stumbling distance of the knowledge I want.

Hg

 

[IRstuff]

The big question is whether YOU find engineering interesting. If you don't, the motivation will be difficult to find. If you do, then it's easy, because you'll be just as likely to pick up and read a copy of Photonics Spectra vs. Sports Illustrated.

This is a very difficult in the US. Despite being a world leader in technology and science, the typical American despises someone who would rather read Photonics Spectra and thinks they need a "life." Makes you wonder about someone who thinks that it's more important to know Hank Aaron's batting average by season rather than to know what the state of the art in engineering is.

TTFN

 

[HgTX]

Watch it, Homeland Security is gonna come for ya.

Seriously, USAn culture is extremely anti-intellectual. It's at the heart of a lot of what I think is wrong with this country, all of which is off-topic. But what's relevant here is IRstuff's point about being motivated to know what one should. There's pressure against doing well in school before one ever heads off to college, and then lesser but still-extant levels of anti-intellectualism in college and then in the professional world.

Sad.

Hg

 

[TheTick]

I tried calculating the slope of the learning curve using Excel, but I got a "#DIV/0!" error!

"When everyone is thinking alike, no one is thinking very much." --Eckhard Schwarz (1930--2004)

http://www.EsoxRepublic.com

 

[APH]

I'd be lying if I said I didn't open sport illustrated at least once a month. On my last job, it took me 3 years to feel comfortable with my responsibilities, by the end of the 4th year I got bored and quit my job.

APH

 

[GregLocock]

I've been working since uni for about 22 years.

Four years ago I thought I'd pretty much learnt as much as I could (within various external constraints) in the field I usually worked in, realised that, and got a job in a whole different area.

The new job has been an excellent learning opportunity and my interest in work has jumped by at least one hundred percent.

If I'm not learning (which means making mistakes) then I'm on the verge of being bored.


Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[GOTWW]

In the research business, it is about one time every two-months. It is a routine. Goto tech library. Check out all books on subject. Dissect and cross correlate all pertinent information. Do model. Write report. Do viewgraphs. Get new assignment. Start all over.

 

[jsummerfield]

Perhaps things change slowly in the Civil/Structural disciplines. I would expect things to change faster in mechanical. Things change rapidly in the instrumentation and control systems business.

As we age we plateau. I no longer seek to attend lots of seminars or read lots of papers on an abstract basis. However, I gather and read lots of stuff when my project has unfamiliar requirements.

John

 

[HgTX]

Very little changes in civil/structural. In my little world, a new formulation of low-alloy bridge steel is the subject of much overblown hoo-hah, as is the revamping of a 40-year-old welding process (the thrashing throes of implementation now at four years and counting). Every once in a while we hear about the latest magic paint, and every once in a longer while it actually does what it's supposed to. Over in concrete the material is a little more variable so they have somewhat more to get excited about, but still I'm sure their idea of what's revolutionary pales beside other industries. The latest buzzword is "rapid deployment", the utterly radical concept of building stuff fast.

That said, even the narrowly defined area of steel bridges is broad enough that the parts I don't routinely deal with I have to work at to maintain a slight clue.