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Originally Posted by Liz C
Hi Everyone!
1. What excites you most about engineering as a career?
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For me it's less about being excited about my job and more about being at peace with it. I don't excite easily about anything. Even when I am excited about what I'm doing, I can't sustain it. So, for me, I like engineering because it's something I can do everyday and not get sick of it, and it's something I respect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Liz C
2. What made you decide to become an engineer?
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I can't recall any one moment when I decided I was going to get into this field. It was more of a gradual acceptance of what my talents were and what I enjoyed. I remeber I always had more fun and put more effort into any sort of competition in science classes ( water bottle rockets, rat trap cars etc.). Then I got into FIRST and realized that I could easily spend 40 hours a week working with the team, but school felt like a huge chore. So, some time during high school I realized that there was work I could do that wasn't painful and seemed worth the effort. By the time I had to go to college there wasn't really any debate or hand wringing about what my major should be. It felt, and feels, natural so I guess I got it right.
I briefly considered going into journalism, which I think I had some talent with. But I didn't really enjoy it, and I realized that I wouldn't respect my own work 10 years down the road.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Liz C
3. In your job, how important are good communication skills (written and spoken)?
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Communication is everything. Engineering is 10% coming up with the solution, 90% convincing everyone it is the solution. I couldn't even scratch the surface of how important being able to get your ideas across are. Suffice to say that my communication skills have gotten me further in my education and career then my 'hard' engineering skills.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Liz C
4. Do you primarily work alone or in teams?
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Right now I'm the only 'real' engineer working for my company in the US. So, for the most part, I work alone but in conjunction with our manufacturing overseas. This is another area where those 'soft' skills come in. I need to be able to communicate my designs to people who don't speak English nativly. So I have to keep my language simple and use numbers, pictures and engineering terms where possible.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Liz C
5. Is it important for an engineer to understand strength of materials concepts (stress, strain, deformations)?
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For a ME, absolutely. I don't have occasion to apply that field much, but I could easily have ended up in a position where I did. I actually liked my SoM and metallurgy classes in college. The math was kind of dry but I think everyone agrees destructive testing is a blast. Right now I only work in injection molding and most of the materials science has been done for me already. By using standard part thicknesses, fasteners and so on I can avoid a lot of that work. But SoM is core stuff for an ME. It's ok if you don't remember all the equations 10 years from now (I don't now!), but you have got to be able to make sense of a stress/strain diagram, phase diagrams and so on. Modern CAD software can really speed this stuff up, but you need to know how to interpret the results of it's analysis.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Liz C
6. What kind of engineering did you study?
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My degree was in Electro-mechanical engineering technology. So I guess that puts me somewhere in between a tech with an associates and a full on engineer specializing in mechanical or electrical engineering. I gravitated to the program because degree holders typically end up in real 'hands-on' positions. I didn't want to end up permantly behind a desk, or living in a machine shop. This is turning out to be a nice middle ground for me.
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Originally Posted by Liz C
7. What kind of engineering do you do now?
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Right now most of my time is being spent taking an existing product, modeling it, refining it for faster/more efficient molding and evolving the design. The CAD and injection molding stuff isn't really much fun. I have a lot more fun making prototypes and trying weird new approaches to some old problems using a pretty set bag of tricks.
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Originally Posted by Liz C
**also, I forgot to mention this before but if you could please post where you work (company name) and how long you've worked there, that'd be great! thanks so much!
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I work at
Newgy Industries. We make Table Tennis practice robots. I've been there for about 6 months now (and just finally got my phone connected! W00t, I have an extension, therefore I am!). I was hired straight out of college.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Liz C
Liz
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