Let say that you have time machine and that you can go back to the past. What advice would you give to yourself, based what you experienced so far in mechanical engineering?
Determine what carrer path you want - want to be very techinical and stay in design/engineering or go into project management.
If want to be technical engineer than work to that path. If want to be in project manangement act like a technical spastic and someone will scoop you up to be team leader.
So I stayed in technical design engineering for 40 years. Build up as much knowlege aboiut every aspect of your job technically - read and study much on my own maybe as much as in college, go to seminars, learn new softwear. Never refuse to do a job when asked - always show a sense of technical compdetence and excitement to be getting a highly tecnical and very visible project to work on. Show them you are not afraid to take on anything new as you have that much confidence in you own ability to solve any issue that might arise because you have true knowlege and undertanding of what you are doing. So there should be no fear about taking on anything in your field.
For me it would be to have more confident in myself and to not trust too much in titles of colleagues as a proof of thier knowledge and experience.
Yes this is what I am talking about is that you really have to believe that you have studied and understood everything required and therefore your thinking process is just as good or even better than anyones else as you are like a subject matter expert. In fact I never believed anyone (engineer, company president ect.) who said anything to me until I thought over myself and convinced myselt what he told me was correct. You must always make every decision because you came to the conclusion also on your own even if it was something that was suggested to you by someone else first. In other words, if something does go wrong never blame it on someone else - that is very unprofessional. Think in detail on your own about everything you do to see if it makes sense. I used to try to devrive most equations on my own until I totally understood the equation and how it got to be in the form it was in, for days or even weeks sometimes. In aboiut 10 or so years everyone will be coming to put you on their project.
Disassemble as many products as can, to get sense how to design products in a proper manner.
Yea that would help to get first hand knowledge of the actual equipment and systems you are dealing with. I worked as a process design engineer for o&g, refining, chemical plant, etc. Altough mostly designing in office I spent a few years overall working in the fields putting together and starting up of process systems.
Get balls to ask for a raise.
For my beginning years I never was very concered with pay as long as I was gaining good experience which I was. I got laid off after 3 year on my first job due to the oil crisis in 1980's and was not paid that much but got good experience construction of offshore platforms working in middle east, singapore and indonesia. That goood eperience got me a job within 9 months of getting laid off as a office mechanical design engineer designing industrial process systems where I worked for 22 years. Pay was low in the beginning and was hard to get it up as you are taken for granted that you won't likely leave company if you are there for too long a period. In fact when I did leave after 22 years I was the only remaining mechanical engineer still remaining that I started working with. They finally started bumping up my salary towards the final years but then started giving very low raises again although I would be given some of the most technical jobs.
Then someone who had just left for another company recruited me over at a huge raise and because of the 22 years exprience with the previous company. I then worked here for 12 years where my salary was about tops in my field of mech process design. So saving the next 12 years and with my wife salary we were able to pay off house, pay off all bills, and have good 401K's ect (more than enough lets say). for retirement.
So what I am saying is first build you technical/knowledge skills until you are about in your 40's then you should peak sometime 40-55 years old and make sure you save good and pay off your house. When you get too old about 55 then no one wants to pay you a high salry anymore unless you really have some special skills.
Also as someone mention - get into a 401K at work as soon as you are elegible. I waited about 5 years and people that started 5 years before me were already up to 50K-100K which as a lot of money in 1986. It compounds very very fast.
Also like someone said live within your means which means having enough money to pay off house as soon as possible - get 15 or 20 year note, save regularly though 401 K and other, Allow some percentage for fun - don't spend more than you have and life a lifestile you have to borrow too much money for except for your house because you are payin off as soon as you can. Helps if your wife works so you can posibly live off one salary and completely save the other. My wife was nurse so that is what we did.
![[lol]](/data/assets/smilies/lol.gif "[lol] [lol]")
. Thanks a lot!