What to do, what to do

[serspec]

Hey guys,
So here's the story. I just recently got my BSME and am now working for a good company doing CAD stuff. I have only been here for about 8 months now but i am starting to hate it. I get along with all co-workers and management and really enjoy the work, when i have stuff to do that is. There are times that i seriously work 8 hour days and do MAYBE 30 minutes of actual work. The rest of my time is spent online and reading articles found around the office. I have taken it upon myself to try and find things to do but it just isn't there. I am having trouble deciding what to do now. It seems like everyone else in the company is satisfied with doing nothing all day but I'm the type of person that likes/needs to be challenged. I just feel that I am not getting the experience I could be getting for a first job. I know that spending less than a year at a first job is frowned upon, but i don't know if i will be able to take these looooong boring days with absolutely nothing to do much longer. Any advise on the situation would be greatly appreciated.

 

[KENAT]

I nearly linke to thread731-216753 ykee but forgot. OP take a look, see where what it suggests fits your personality and go for it.

Like ykee says, don't use it as a brown nosers guide, see the comments on this.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[GregLocock]

If you want to get into the analysis side then start to reverse engineer the designs you are working on. Ask the design engineer (politely) how come he has overdesigned/underdesigned it compared with your calculations - ok that sounds like an easy way of annoying him/her, perhaps it would be better to ask them if you can work through their calcs.

Now is your chance to get familiar with the technical library, if you have one. Sitting down and reading technical papers (and writing summaries of the useful ones) can make you the goto man for new projects, which are always more fun (and agaony) than firefighting. Same with textbooks. Your coworkers will probably be happy to lend yo their textbooks. If they are different to the ones you used at uni you may find one that is more sympathetic to your way of thinking.

The next few years should see your productivity double or more, and your pay should increase in hefty leaps and bounds.

But it won't if you are just content to drive a tube.





Cheers

Greg Locock

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

 

[ashjun]

Have you tried for a higher degree? See if you could take time off towards the end of the year. Any enhanced technical skill would improve your chances for the next job

Cheers

 

[serspec]

Ykee $ Kenat
I actually found that thread the other day and read the article and comments and found it quite interesting.

Greg, I have been messing around with analysis with some of our parts but right now am just kinda stumbling through it since i have never done any FEA before. Unfortunately the one at my company that does our FEA came from oversees a few months ago. I would go to him to show me the loops but it is extremely hard to communicate with him since his English isn't too fluent yet. I am a good self-learner though and have taken it upon myself to try and learn what i can.

ashjun,
I really haven't though about any higher education at the moment since i just got out of college a few months ago. Plus i need to start paying those loans back soon.

Thanks everyone for your input I greatly appreciate it!!

 

[KENAT]

serspec, you mention FEA, have you tried analyzing the same components using classical methods? While there is some dissent, generally good practice is to validate FEA results with hand calcs whenever possible. Get yourself a copy of Roark or whatever makes sense in your application and give it a go.

Like Greg and I mention though, if you do come up with something of interest then be very careful how you broach it with the Engineeer.


KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[GregLocock]

The first technical mentor I had was very very good. We were just starting to do FEA seriously, he (obviously) had been brought up using hand calcs. Consequently his first question each time we had a 'puzzle' with an FEA result was, where is your handcalc?

After a year working for him I was thoroughly familiar with several chapters of Bruhn.

On a slightly different topic, he also reinforced the importance of rigour. We used to be charged by the RMS of the size of the calculation, and the maximum size was limited by the computer's memeory. We were also charged for using the program that estimated these two numbers. One of my jobs was to write our own alternative to that program. I did so and was very pleased with the result. He was not. There was than 1% difference between the results from my program and the official one. Not the end of the world, but he wouldn't let me release the program until I could either explain the difference, or it agreed perfectly. Luckily it took me only a couple of hours to find the loop that finished with an LE rather than an EQ, and it was good to go.



Cheers

Greg Locock

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