Returning to grad school-keeping hand in consulting

[MRM]

Earlier this year, I was accepted into the Ph.D. civil/geotech program at U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a fellowship award. I’ve accepted this appointment and I’ll be heading back to school this fall.

Even before I had been accepted (or had even submitted my application to U. of I.), I disclosed my unofficial plans to return to school in the fall to my present company. I did this in early January. As you might imagine this was a rather big risk, but in the end my intuition was correct because while they were unhappy to see me go, they appreciated the nearly 9 months they had to find another engineer to fill my position. Everything’s been as good as ever with my relationship with my manager and the firm.

After recently receiving my notice of acceptance into the doctoral program, I gave my company my official resignation letter telling them that my last day of work will be on August 1 of this year.

Now even though my fellowship award is generous, my budget calculations tell me that I’ll need to bring in some additional money to help make ends meet and to maintain some insurance coverage. I’m also interested in keeping a hand in the consulting side of things too, because I enjoy it and I feel that I’m good at working with folks on engineering projects. I’ve discussed the idea of working on the side with my future advisor at U. of I. and he was all for it. He did the same thing during his graduate work. He also explained that, with the fellowship, I have the most time of any financial award to pursue other work if I choose to. He explained some common sense things including that the amount of work that I take on basically depends on how well I can manage my time. Over the years I’ve developed good time management skills.

With all of this in mind, I included in the resignation letter the possibility of doing some part-time work for my present company from afar. I left out the details of what I had in mind, in hopes that we could discuss it further later. I believe that I can continue to add value to the company in a number of ways on a technical front, and on a marketing front. I’m well regarded by my colleagues at my current company and by my clients. I’ve been at this company for 8 years, been a proven money maker for the organization, and I feel that I know the technical aspects of my profession well (not that there’s not more to learn though). I was offered an opportunity to buy stock a couple of years ago. I declined the offer at the time because I sensed that I needed to be on a slightly different path in the future, although at the time, I didn't know what that path was.

With what I’ve had to say, and if you were in my company’s shoes, would you be receptive to this idea? Has anyone out there had a similar experience in approaching your company to do some part-time work when you move back to school? What was the most effective way of securing engineering-related work while working on your degree? Any insight on how best to go about this? Perhaps I should explore working with other companies to gain new experiences and expand my horizons?

I value your comments greatly.

 

[zdas04]

It sounds like you've done everything right and I envy you the position you are in.

When you approach your soon to be former employeers with this idea you need to have thought out the relationship that you want to have with them. I can see this playing out either as a part time hourly employee (not great for the company since they still have to match Soc Security) or as a sub contractor. If you are a sub then you need to go the whole distance--business license, B&P Liability insurance, etc. That can get expensive out the door, but the insurance is typically charged based on gross billing so if you are only billing $30-50k/year the rate per $k may seem high, but the check you have to right will be "reasonable".

Good luck.

David

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

http://www.muleshoe-eng.com

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

The harder I work, the luckier I seem

 

[tygerdawg]

Tell me more about this program you're going into. I think I need a career change.

My graduate experience was 2 years of 18-20 hour days, 7 days a week (somewhat less between semesters), doing Slave Labor for a couple of Prof-Zillas. I barely had time to eat, much less do consulting engineering work on the side. If I was an engineering manager and saw a proposal like this from someone entering a Ph.D. program, I'd wonder if they knew what they were getting themselves into.

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering

http://www.bluetechnik.com

 

[MechEng2005]

Congratulations on your acceptance!

While I'm not familiar with the legal requirements of employment, if I were looking at things from your current company's position, I would value having somebody with experience available, especially as they bring in somebody new who may take a bit to get up-to-speed. Where I work, we have a second engineer or detailer review all drawings, just to verify all dimensions, tolerances, weld symbols, etc are present and accurate (I'm in mechanical and no stamp or PE requirements). This would seem like work that could be done from afar by somebody familiar with the company and their drafting standards. However, where I work it is typically feast or famine, so maybe having somebody part-time wouldn't work as well.

Just my 2 cents,

MechEng2005

 

[MRM]

Excellent thoughts!

David, I didn't think about the social security matching, but you're right. Not good for them, but much easier for me since if I become a contract employee, I'd need liability and E&O insurance, etc. I'll have to think about my angle there some more. Of course, for what I had in mind, they'd still be able to make more money off me than they ever have (even including soc security). I want to make sure the deal's good for both parties involved.

Now in your opinion, if I approached them about a $20 to $30 an hour rate, 5 to 10 hours per week, with your background in business, would you see this as a potential good deal for them? Their overhead should be reduced because of: no more vacation time, no sick time, no matching 401K, no health insurance, no computer, no vehicle expenses, etc. They should be able to bill me out at $100 and with an approximate newly calculated multiplier of 1.5 ($45/hr to break even), the profit on me would be something like 60% if I'm thinking about that right.

I certainly appreciate your comments, and your concern, Tygerdawg. During my first round of grad work, I also worked 18 to 20 hour days...of course that was only during the last week as I was finishing up my thesis. The rest of the time I was AT school and I was certainly busy running around doing something, but looking back, I'm not sure that I was as efficient as I perhaps thought I was. But still, I know what you mean. That's one of the reasons I think this fellowship is such a blessing. Compared to a TA position or research assistantship, it should free up some time. But notwithstanding the fellowship, I've learned that there is a tremendous amount of time in day. There have been days where I've written two or three site observation reports while some folks a couple of offices down were shooting the bull non-stop about hunting and fishing for the same 1 hour time block. The good advice I'll take from you is not to work with/for Prof-zillas and to have a good plan of attack for my research!
;-)

MechEng-that's sort of what I had in mind. Over the years I've become the go-to guy for a number of types of projects so maybe I could approach it from that direction too. It's good to hear that you'd be open to the idea. That gives me some more hope.

I'm also thinking about licensure in other states to help my odds. I'm currently only licensed to practice engineering in Michigan.

I really do appreciate your thoughts! If any more come to mind, let me know.

 

[Maui]

You won't have very much free time to do consulting work on the side, especially when you start in the graduate program. Over the course of my graduate career I averaged 60 hours per week. If you have the drive you can fit a few consulting jobs in on the side, but then the issue of using school equipment to perform outside work can come into play (i.e. theft of services), and this can put you in a precarious situation with the University if someone decides to complain. I wouldn't do it unless you had access to the company equipment to perform the work. If you need to earn some more money and you've been awarded a fellowship, you can approach the department chairman and ask to work as a graduate assistant for a specific course, and they will pay you extra for doing it. This is exactly what I did for two years in graduate school, and it worked out well financially. Good luck to you.

Maui

 

[TheTick]

If you were useful and they have need, I'm sure they will make use of you.

 

[jpankask]

I agree with TheTick. If you can work something agreeable out to benefit both you and the company, I don't see any reason not to do it, though I have not earned a PhD so I don't know the workload. $20-$30 per hour seems a little low, compared to what we pay contract engineers (but they are full time). Look at what your "hourly" rate is currently (weekly salary/40-45 hours) and add about 50% to that. That will be approximately what the company is paying out for you now with benefits, etc. Ask for that $ per hour for consulting, to start negotiations. To the bean-counters it will still be a money-maker for the company because they only use you when they need you and you aren't accruing things like vacation and pension.