Where were you after one year? 3

[asixth]

Hi guys,

I have recently been unmotivated at work and feel I have not progress my career quite how I expected once finishing school.

What attributes should I have obtained after one years design experience. I have a good understanding of structural analysis, and can design concrete slabs and columns and steelwork to the appropriate codes. But when it comes to construction side of things I have absolutely no idea?

What should be my attributes after one years experience?

 

[PSE]

After one year you should have a pretty good level of comfort with the procedures of how things get done at your employer (possibly the most important attribute). If you have managed to successfully integrate yourself within the company structure, your next few years will (hopefully) be further expansion and development of your technical skills. The "real" work should begin and you should be expected to be a contributor to bring some value to the business and face some challenges. Learing the construction side of the business may be on your own initiative. There is no planned curriculum for you now.

If you feel unmotivated, determine why. Guaranteed, your life is no longer going to be like school. You are fully on your own to make or break your own career. Feeling unmotivated can lead to acting unmotivated. This will have detrimental results.

Regards,

 

[spongebob007]

One year out of school is nothing.

 

[HgTX]

See if your company can give you the opportunity to hang around on construction sites for a little while.

Hg


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[Twoballcane]

One year is really 1/40 of your career :+), which is not much. Your not considerd wet behind the ears till you have 5 years under your belt. So sit tight and learn as much as possible.

Good luck!

Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."

 

[msquared48]

After one year actually in the profession (after grad school, after the military, and after sub-professional Civil enginneering work in the Public sector) I had little if any gut feeling for design, and less for construction. If you have a good employer and mentor, challenging engineering projects, and good study program, it will come in 5 to 6 years, or about the time I was ready to take my Structural exam. Passed it the first time.

Seems like some things in certain school courses you do not "get" until later in life. Don't be discouraged.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[cedarbluffranch]

I think colleges really do a big disservice in this one area. All through school we are raised to "push, push, push" forward learning new skills and figuring out different stuff. A week is a long time in college and a semester (or quarter) last an eternity. You get to do lots of different things all year all the time and are pushed to know a lot of different things.

Then WHAM! You graduate and get into the "real world". All of a sudden you are expected to do one thing well and that's it. All of a sudden a four year research project is nothing. Six months is nothing. Deadlines seem optional, not hard and fast.

What I'm saying is I understand how you feel. You're probably frustrated that you're not working at your capacity and not learning as much as you'd like. Be patient. You'll get there. You'll earn the respect of your coworkers, you'll get the chance to go places and see things. But also remember that your job in college was to learn, but your job today is to do whatever the company hired you to do.

If you're looking for more challenge, have you considered joining the ASCE and becoming an active member? You may find opportunities to branch out and take on leadership roles so you can see civil (or whatever) engineering outside your field.

 

[SomptingGuy]

your job in college was to learn, but your job today is to do whatever the company hired you to do.

Not strictly true. Your job may be to find out new stuff for others to then learn.

- Steve

 

[Noctone]

I completely empathize with you, asixth. I'm about 16 months out of undergrad, and about 10 months into my first engineering job (did software dev. for 6 months). I was used to constantly being pushed and challenged by both my studies and my part-time job(s). I was used to barely ever having a moment's rest. Now...I find myself twiddling my thumbs a lot, and it definitely gets to be more than a little bit frustrating. I sometimes get assigned tasks that are simple and don't always have a set deadline, so I find myself stretching out a one-hour job into 3 - 5 days - not because I'm lazy, but because I simply have nothing else to do.

I'd say that cedarbluffranch pretty much hit the nail on the head. In college all you do is learn, learn, learn. Then you get into the real world and it's do, do, do. It's definitely a bit of a shock, and I'm guessing the only way to mitigate it is to keep grinding on.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Another way to mitigate the boredom is to make learning your job (at least when you're not busy with what they are paying to do). Read company guidebooks, go through old project documentation, talk to the old guys who know everything (very rarely are these guys the bosses). Take a course at night (or online), read books, participate in an online forum, whatever you can think of. You'll be too busy at work to do much of these things in a few years, take advantage while you've got the chance.

 

[macmet]

I'm about three years out of school and I found that in my first year or two my motivation went it waves b/c my work load did. I'd do something I really like for a while that would keep me busy for a month or so, then things would change and it would get slow. That would repeat. I find now that I've been here longer and have more responsibility the slow times are less rare. Sometimes that's good, sometimes it's not.

What I've noticed lately is that I have enough work to do that even if I don't feel like working I can do a simple, boring but important job all morning long. I can always find work something to do these days. That's the biggest difference from now and two years ago.

 

[IRstuff]

Consider this; most product development cycles run anywhere from 2 yrs to 10 yrs, or even longer. Therefore, after 1 yr, in many instances, you haven't even seen a single product through its complete development, so there's plenty more to do and to learn.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[gwynn]

I see four ways to get experience with the construction side.

1. Do some construction. Whether it's building cabinets in someone's (a friend's, relatvie's etc.) workshop or working for a contractor on a multi-million dollar project, it helps understand practically how things go together.

2. Work on construction engineering projects. If you can work on these sorts of projects, especially when working for skilled and experienced contractors, you can gain quite a bit of knowledge of construction methods.

3. Befriend people who work in the construction industry and know what they are doing.

4. Design things in ways that make them hard and expensive to build. The angry phonecalls and change requests from contractors will give you an idea of how things work.

Construction was one of the things I had a decent handle on after a short period of working, as I followed the above four steps. I spent time in school working as a carpenter's apprentice and spent half my time on construction engineering projects. Several of my friends from university went into project management and I still keep in touch with them. And of course, I did make the obligatory mistake of coming up with some hard to build designs.

 

[GregLocock]

One thing may be that you are in the wrong job (not that that hurts for a while). Where I work there is a big division between the Design Engineers, who basically do the program management, organise things, and oversee the component designs, and the Test and Development engineers who break bits and drive cars really fast.

They stuck me in Design for a couple of years, having been in Development for the previous 6 years, and I loathed it, by and large. But I did learn a lot.



Cheers

Greg Locock

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

 

[asixth]

I find it interesting that everyone who replied to this thread seemed to be writing from experience.

Twoballcane,

To say an engineer isn't wet behind the ears until 5 years is a little concerning to me. I look around the Australian design industry at the moment and young guys (<3 years) outnumber the senior guys (>3 years) three to one.

I found myself being teamed with a "mentor" who struggles to keep himself organised, let alone help me out when I struggling with designs.

 

[stanweld]

asixth,
After a year, I knew that I would not be with that company for any more than two years. While I thoroughly enjoyed the work, the benefits were great and I would use the next couple of years to enhance my experience as a metallurgist, I believed that the company could not be sustained and I would need to find work in other metallurgical arenas for long term fulfillment. The company did go out of business ten years after I left.

After a year or so, you should know what your company does, how it functions, what you can reasonably be expected to be doing in the near and long term and whether your near or long term goals can reasonably be met therein.

Discuss your aspirations with your supervisor and/or with a fellow engineer, who you trust. It appears that you will soon have to resolve your current dilemma.

 

[asixth]

Lots of good points have been raised, deadlines seem optional and for the most part, unattainable!

Software development sounds good, how do I get into this industry. I'm a amateur programmer and like to point out the flaws that make the existing software on the market unfriendly to the user or what output should be presented to the user.

I certainly don't want to lose my job because I am behind the mark of where I should be at the moment, and likewise I don't want to leave my first job for the fact it will look poor on a resume.

 

[carnage1]

I'm jealous asixth, you got assigned to a mentor. The closest I ever got to that in my previous jobs was taking breaks when the experienced guys did so I could talk to them.

Luck is a difficult thing to verify and therefore should be tested often. - Me

 

[PEinVA]

This is an interesting topic.

I'm a little over 2 years in.

I feel like I am so much further along than I was out of college. I was absolutely clueless out of college, and thanks to the small company atmosphere, I've been able to get a lot of help from the boss and other older engineer.

I wish I spent more time learning the codes more earlier on, so I would remember to check certain things.

That's just me though.

RC

RC
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Edmund Burke

 

[knight185]

I am 27 months out of college and work in fossil power plants (mechanical engineer). After a year I was assigned to a major controls system upgrade. After 18 months I was assigned to be project manager of a major turbine overhaul after 10 years of run time. My company gives young engineers a lot of responsibility early on, so we have to hit the ground moving. The more initiative you show the more responsibility you will get.